Northeast Of Madagascar Research Articles

Gray versus yellow ventral coloration: Identity, distribution, color polymorphism and molecular relationships of the microhylid frog Platypelis mavomavo Andreone, Fenolio & Walvoord, 2003.

The Malagasy frog Platypelis mavomavo from Ambolokopatrika in the North East of Madagascar was originally diagnosed based on its bright yellow venter, but only limited information on this species has become available after its initial description in 2003. Several Platypelis specimens with yellow ventral color have been erroneously assigned to this species due to a lack of DNA sequences from the P. mavomavo type series. On the other hand, the candidate species Platypelis sp. Ca10 from Andranomapanga in the Northern Central East of Madagascar with gray ventral color has been defined based on its genetic differentiation from other nominal Platypelis species. Here we study the genetic variation of P. mavomavo and P. sp. Ca10 based on mitochondrial (16S rRNA) and nuclear-encoded (RAG-1) genes, including a newly determined sequence from the P. mavomavo holotype, which was studied using a museomics approach. We find only limited genetic variation among the samples studied, and this variation is unlinked to ventral coloration but instead reflects geographic distribution. We, therefore, conclude that P. sp. Ca10 is a gray-colored variant of P. mavomavo, and that P. mavomavo is rather widespread in the North East and Northern Central East of Madagascar, with populations in areas bordering the North West (Ambohitantely) and Sambirano (Ampotsidy) geographic regions, and the yellow-bellied morph restricted to the North East (Makira, Ambolokopatrika). Due to the range extension of P. mavomavo, the conservation status of the species requires re-assessment.

A habitat stronghold on the precipice: A call-to-action for supporting lemur conservation in northeast Madagascar.

The northeast of Madagascar is as diverse as it is threatened. The area bordering the Analanjirofo and SAVA regions contains six protected areas and at least 22 lemur species. Many applied research and conservation programs have been established in the region with the aim of ensuring both wildlife and people thrive in the long term. While most of the remaining humid evergreen forest of northeast Madagascar is formally protected, the local human population depends heavily on the land, and unsustainable natural resource use threatens this biodiversity hotspot. Drawing from our collective experiences managing conservation activities and research programs in northeast Madagascar, we discuss the major threats to the region and advocate for eight conservation activities that help reduce threats and protect the environment, providing specific examples from our own programs. These include (1) empowering local conservation actors, (2) ensuring effectively protected habitat, (3) expanding reforestation, (4) establishing and continuing long-term research and monitoring, (5) reducing food insecurity, (6) supporting environmental education, (7) promoting sustainable livelihoods, and (8) expanding community health initiatives. Lastly, we provide a list of actions that individuals can take to join us in supporting and promoting lemur conservation.

Studies in Malagasy Eugenia (Myrtaceae) ‐ VI: A New Species with Large Leaves and Coarsely and Irregularly Verrucose Fruits

Abstract—A new species with verrucose fruits and relatively large leaves, Eugenia antilahimenae, is described from the northeast of Madagascar. It is known from the protected areas of Makira and Masoala in lowland rainforests west and north of the Baie d'Antongil. We provide a detailed description of the species, illustration, a table comparing morphologically similar taxa, and preliminary assessment of the risk of extinction following the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, which indicates a status of “Least Concern.”

High clonal propagation and low population connectivity in the holothurian Stichopus chloronotus from the Indo-Pacific

Sea cucumber populations are declining worldwide through overfishing. This is also the case for the greenfish Stichopus chloronotus in spite of its moderate commercial value. We studied asexual propagation of this fissiparous species at different geographic scales as well as the genetic population structure within and among two marine provinces: the Western Indian Ocean and the Tropical Southwestern Pacific. A total of 18 populations (n = 809 individuals) were sampled in both provinces encompassing three ecoregions (New Caledonia, western and northern Madagascar, Mascarene Islands) and genotyped using nine microsatellite loci, allowing the identification of repeated multi-locus genotypes. Populations presented low clonal richness with few clones and a high number of individuals per clone. No clones were shared among different islands. Within islands, members of the same clone could be found 3–15 km apart, indicating that asexual reproduction allows population maintenance at reef scales. Assignment tests and individual-based networks identified two isolated New Caledonian populations, while a third population was less differentiated to those from the Western Indian Ocean than to the two former. Regional ocean currents could explain these patterns. Within the Western Indian Ocean, differentiation indices were always high, indicating restricted gene flow among populations. Possible overfishing of S. chloronotus stock is evidenced by very low sample sizes (and in some cases, the absence) in spite of high sampling efforts [all around New Caledonia, Chesterfield/Bampton/Bellona Plateau (Coral Sea), north-east of Madagascar, Scattered Islands (Mozambique Channel)].

Another new sub-fossil species of scorpion of the genus Palaeogrosphus Lourenço, 2000 from Malagasy copal (Scorpiones: Buthidae)

Palaeogrosphus jacquesi sp. n., the third known sub-fossil scorpion from Malagasy copal, is described. This is the fourth record of a sub-fossil scorpion in copal. The copal specimen was collected in the mines of the region of Sambava, Province of Antsiranana in the northeast of Madagascar. It belongs to the genus Palaeogrosphus Lourenço, 2000, described from Madagascar, and now represented by two sub-fossil species.

Deforestation and forest degradation monitoring and assessment of biomass and carbon stock of lowland rainforest in the Analanjirofo region, Madagascar

Madagascar is currently developing a policy and strategies to enhance the sustainable management of its natural resources, encouraged by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and REDD. To set up a sustainable financing scheme methodologies have to be provided that estimate, prevent and mitigate leakage, develop national and regional baselines, and estimate carbon benefits. With this research study this challenge was tried to be addressed by analysing a lowland rainforest in the Analanjirofo region in the district of Soanierana Ivongo, North East of Madagascar. For two distinguished forest degradation stages: “low degraded forest” and “degraded forest” aboveground biomass and carbon stock was assessed. The corresponding rates of carbon within those two classes were calculated and linked to a multi-temporal set of SPOT satellite data acquired in 1991, 2004 and 2009. Deforestation and particularly degradation and the related carbon stock developments were analysed. With the assessed data for the 3 years 1991, 2004 and 2009 it was possible to model a baseline and to develop a forest prediction for 2020 for Analanjirofo region in the district of Soanierana Ivongo. These results, developed applying robust methods, may provide important spatial information regarding the priorities in planning and implementation of future REDD+ activities in the area.

A new species of Hibiscus (Malvaceae) from Madagascar

Hibiscus fanambanensis, a new species from the north-east of Madagascar, is described and illustrated based on its morphological characteristics. It belongs to Hibiscus sect. Azanza.

Morphology and distribution of the acorn barnacle Tetraclita reni nom. nov. (Crustacea: Cirripedia) in Madagascar and adjacent waters

In Madagascan waters, both Tetraclita rufotincta Pilsbry 1916 and T. africana Ren 1989 have been reported. Tetraclita rufotincta is more widely distributed than T. africana, extending to the western Indian Ocean and east Africa. Tetraclita africana is reported from Madagascar and no further distribution record has been made apart from its type locality. Both species have pink parietes and are similar in size, which could lead to identification confusion. In this study, we revealed that T. africana differed from T. rufotincta in having multicuspidate setae on cirrus III, a feature that can be observed with both light microscopy and SEM. Additionally, the tergum of T. africana has a rounded spur and a larger basi-scutal angle than that of T. rufotincta. However, since the name Tetraclita africana has been pre-occupied under the name Tesseropora (Tetraclita) wireni africana Nilsson-Cantell, 1932, we, therefore, propose herein a replacement name, Tetraclita reni nom. nov. Based on museum specimens examined, Tetraclita reni nom. nov. is present in northeastern and southern Madagascar and Mauritius but absent from Yemen, Kenya, South Africa, Aldabra and northwestern Madagascar, suggesting the distribution of T. reni nom. nov. could be confined to the south and northeast of Madagascar and adjacent waters.

Natural History of the Red Owl (Tyto soumagnei) in Dry Deciduous Tropical Forest in Madagascar

Abstract Recent observations of the Red Owl (Tyto soumagnei) in Madagascar demonstrated that it inhabits dry deciduous forest, and roosts on rock ledges and in cave entrances in the extreme north of the island. We observed a Red Owl at a sinkhole site in the Reserve Speciale d'Ankarana, found evidence of its use of an additional cave, and collected its pellets in three separate dry seasons between 2000 and 2003. Tsingy tufted-tailed rats (Eliurus antsingy) constituted almost 50% of the total prey mass of Red Owls at Ankarana. Their diet at Ankarana differed from that of Red Owls from Masoala in the humid northeast of Madagascar, as the Ankarana pellets contained insects, frogs, and numerous geckos. Red Owls appear to consume more native than introduced rodents and do not appear to prey upon birds or bats like other large owls on the island. Forest degradation could reduce densities of tufted-tailed rats and could be a conservation threat to this owl.

Dietary Guidelines Spark Flap Over Fish Consumption

NUTRITION Recommendations from a nonprofit group urging pregnant women to boost their fish consumption—contrary to U.S. guidelines—sparked widespread criticism earlier this month, in part because the review was funded by the fisheries industry. The advisory from the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies (HMHB) Coalition has been dismissed by health advocates and government officials alike. Yet some researchers not involved in the furor say that industry sponsorship should not obscure the fact that fish consumption has plummeted because of federal guidelines—and that standards should be reconsidered. In a statement issued on 4 October, HMHB and 14 researchers who reviewed the literature advised pregnant women to eat at least 12 ounces of fish each week to provide the developing fetus with brain-building omega-3 fatty acids. That contrasts with the position of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which in 2004 recommended that pregnant women consume no more than 12 ounces a week to limit their intake of mercury. ![Figure][1] Caveat consumptor. A diet of fish during pregnancy can both help and harm a fetus's developing brain. CREDIT: DPA/LANDOV Government agencies reacted swiftly to HMHB's pronouncement. Three of HMHB's members—the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resources and Services Administration—rejected the advice in a letter in The Washington Post. FDA and EPA announced that their guidelines wouldn't be changing. Critics fault HMHB for accepting $60,000 from the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group, to disseminate the recommendations, along with honoraria of $1000 to $1500 per researcher. HMHB Executive Director Judy Meehan says the group gave no thought to how the industry funding would be perceived. “People seem to have strong opinions” about fish consumption, but the science is “open to lots of interpretation,” says Gary Myers, a pediatric neurologist at the University of Rochester in New York who has helped lead a major study of fish consumption in pregnancy, in the Seychelles northeast of Madagascar. He and others say it's difficult to identify the tipping point at which the risks of mercury in fish outweigh the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. The topic also pits scientific disciplines against each other. “Environmental health people see the effects of mercury on the brain and get scared; nutrition people says there's this great nutrient and people aren't getting enough,” says Emily Oken, a nutrition researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston who focuses on women's health. In her own study of 135 babies and their mothers, Oken found that higher fish consumption boosts cognition at 6 months of age, whereas mercury levels, measured in a mother's hair, decrease it. But on balance, she wrote in a 2005 paper in Environmental Health Perspectives , more fish in the diet was still associated with better cognition. In general, scientists note that both the benefits and drawbacks of fish are small for individuals, although they can be significant across a population. Exposure is usually measured as mercury in maternal hair. Some studies show that an increase in this index is linked to very subtle cognitive changes, including reduced word recall and a 1-point loss in IQ. HMHB's guidance gave little weight to the risks of mercury and did not recommend that pregnant women avoid high-mercury fish. Even some who worry that pregnant women consume too little fish say that HMHB's guidelines focus too much on the benefits of fish, just as the federal recommendations are faulted for overemphasizing the risks. In response, Patricia Nolan, a public health physician at Brown University who helped craft the HMHB recommendations, said in an e-mail that “we emphasized the positive because women are decreasing or eliminating already low fish consumption.” But what's really needed, says David Bellinger, a neuropsychologist at Harvard Medical School, is a more nuanced review that would give pregnant women a fuller picture of how specific types and quantities of fish in the diet could affect their baby-to-be. [1]: pending:yes

A distinctive new species of Xyrodromeus Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae) from Madagascar

The genus Xyrodromeus Lugo-Ortiz & McCafferty was established for Afrotropical species of Baetidae (Ephemeroptera) possessing bladelike mandibles. Recently, three new species were described from Madagascar. Xyrodromeus ambiguus n. sp. is established for larvae collected in the North and North-East of Madagascar. It possesses most of the generic features of Xyrodromeus, but differs significantly from all the previously known species by possessing two rows of denticles on the tarsal claws. This species has an intermediate position between Xyrodromeus and Dicentroptilum Wuillot & Gillies. While it may confirm the strong relationship between the two genera, it also opens the question of their validity and could suggest that all these species belong to a single variable and graded genus.

The Influence on Summer Rainfall in the Lesotho Lowlands from Indian Ocean SSTs

Lesotho is located approximately at latitude 30 degrees south in the interior of Southern Africa. The mesoscale climate is complicated and governed by various weather systems. The inter-annual rainfall variability is great, resulting in low food security, since the growing of crops in the Lesotho Lowlands is almost exclusively rain-fed. Reliable forecasts of austral summer rainfall are thus valuable. Earlier research has shown that the sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Indian Ocean to some extent govern rainfall in Southern Africa. The research presented is part of an on-going project to find suitable oceanographic and meteorological predictors, which can be used in a forecast model for summer rainfall, to be developed later. The first part of this paper investigates the correlation between the average SSTs in the Equatorial Indian Ocean, the Central Indian Ocean, and the Agulhas Gyre, respectively, and rainfall two months later in the Lesotho Lowlands during early austral summer, October until December for the period 1949-1995. No significant correlations have been found, probably because the three ocean areas are too large. In the second part of this paper the monthly SST in 132 grid squares in the Indian Ocean were investigated and found to be correlated with rainfall in the Lesotho Lowlands two months later, October until March. Significant correlations have been found between the SSTs and certain ocean areas and December, January, and February rainfall, respectively. There is significant negative correlation between December rainfall and October SST in an ocean area between Kenya and Somalia across the Indian Ocean to Sumatra. In the area where the Somali Current flows there is also significant correlation between December SST and December rainfall. January rainfall is significantly negatively correlated with November SST in an ocean area, northeast of Madagascar. February rainfall is significantly, but weakly, negatively correlated with SST in a narrow north-south corridor in the Eastern Indian Ocean from the equator down to latitude 40 degrees south.

Forced resonant undulation in the deep Mascarene Basin

Abstract Current meters moored for 19.5 months at Lat. 20°S in the deep water of the western Mascarene Basin recorded a distinct, large-amplitude [O(10 cm s −1 )] undulation of bimonthly period, propagating westward at 7 cm s −1 . Its characteristics demonstrate that it was a barotropic Rossby wave of relatively large meridional scale. Simple theory accounts for it as having been forced by local wind-stress curl at one of the resonant frequencies of the Mascarene Basin. A sharp bimonthly peak is also prominent in spectra of TOPEX/POSEIDON sea-surface height in the Mascarene Basin, but is not seen to the eastward, as is consistent with the local generation. Fluctuations of 45-day period reported earlier in the upper ocean just northeast of Madagascar might have been generated through a similar process, but with frequency shifted by the South Equatorial Current.

Le développement agricole du bassin supérieur de la Lokoho, à Madagascar

Agricultural Development in the Upper Basin of Lokoho, Madagascar. The upper basin of Lokoho is a bowl in the Northeast of Madagascar, situated at an altitude of 480 meters, the bottom of which was for a long time unexploited. Its agricultural development began at the beginning of the Twentieth Century with the introduction of coffee and vanilla crops. This region remained totally isolated untill 1947, the year when an air service between Andapa and Tananarive was inaugurated. This service favored the development of the two income crops which, sold at favorable prices, were able to be exported profitably by plane. The very demographic growth, due essentially to immigration, was responsible for the development of rice growing, for local food purposes. Beginning in 1966, a hydraulic installation enabled the area to produce enough rice for export to the neighbouring regions, thanks to the linking road of Andapa-Sambava, built in 1970. At present, the Andapa region grows mainly rice, but rice production will rapidly a maximum limit, when the development of the plain is terminated. The real estate situation obliges the farmers to farm parcels that are too small for the economic use of machines ; some of these plots, moreover, have been attributed to bureaucrats and merchants whose only aim is to feed their families. Finally, rice, the basic food crop of the Madagascans, will always be sold at a very low price, not at all enticing to interest the farmer. Under the pressure of a constantly growing population, the peasants will then seek to farm the slopes. Rice paddy farming being impossible on the slopes, coffee and vanilla crops should logically experience a new growth phase.

Mascarene Plateau, Western Indian Ocean

The submarine Mascarene Plateau, lying east and northeast of Madagascar in the west central Indian Ocean, extends as a faulted composite arc for 2300 km, from the Precambrian granitic “micro-continent” of Seychelles Bank southward through the coral–reef–capped volcanic structures (?) of Saya de Malha, Nazareth, and Cargados Carajos banks to the faulted Tertiary–Quaternary oceanic volcanic island Mauritius. Locally the aseismic plateau is buttressed by spurs, is steep-sided and angular in plan, or is extended, disrupted, or offset by cross–faulting. Other major structural elements in a sector centered on the Mascarene Plateau are: (1) the seismically active Mid-Indian Ocean Ridge and rift zone (including that portion known as the Carlsberg Ridge) between the equator and its bifurcation near 23°S.; (2) the angular and faulted Amirante Trench lying between Seychelles Bank and the Madagascar-Farquhar complex; (3) the east–west late Tertiary–Pleistocene Rodriguez Ridge and its possible extension eastward as a fracture zone offsetting the Mid-Indian Ocean Ridge; (4) the Mauritius Trench, a 1400-km border deep-trending southwest from east of Mauritius to 28°S., 51°E. Irregular topography, attributed to volcanism and block faulting, is strikingly developed southeast of the intersection of Rodriguez Ridge with the Mascarene Plateau. Here linear, slightly sedimented deeps and narrow ridges lie subparallel to Mauritius Trench and to the southwest branch of the Mid-Indian Ocean Ridge. Except in the northwest sector where northwest and north trends lie within the Agalega–Seychelles–Amirante–Owen Fracture Zone complex, the dominant topographic lineations are northeast to east–northeast. These are displayed by large features such as fractures offsetting the mid-oceanic ridge (for example, Vema Trench), the Mauritius Trench and the linear topography southeast of Mauritius, the apparent offsets of the southern half of the Mascarene Plateau, spurs on the west flank of the mid-oceanic ridge, and the smaller ridges protruding; from the sedimented rise and abyssal plain between Tromelin and the Mascarene Plateau. Offsets of the Mascarene Plateau along northeast-trending faults-occurred in Tertiary time as adjustments accompanying formation of the Mascarene Basin. Activity on several of these faults has continued where they intersect the crestal portions of the mid-oceanic ridge system, but growth of the exceedingly rough, ridge in this region is primarily by addition of igneous material along its axis.