SCI/275
February 03, 2013
Lemurs in Madagascar
There are about 30 to 35 different types of Lemurs but there has been so many new species that they are not sure how many there is exactly. In Madagascar there is about 11 different kind and some of them are about to be instinct depending on the area they live in due to environmental changes.
The biomes in Madagascar are several depending what part we are looking at. One biome that they have is savanna, they have tropical weather and grasslands with trees. In the other areas where there are changes it is dessert biome, they have dry areas, where there is hardly trees, but they have a lot of dirt. Madagascar is going through environmental destruction caused by humans,
which are ecological successions. Humans are cutting down trees and changing their habitat, this also causes Lemurs to have less living area. It has been said that the evolution of the lemurs have changed they are now found to be smaller. Lemurs that are adapting to the changes in their habitat are the Ring-tailed lemurs. Researchers have found that the Ring-tailed lemurs can adapt to eating the new plant crops that humans have planted. The lemurs that are not adapting to the changes of their habitats are the Bamboo lemurs. Once humans start cutting down their bamboo in the conservation areas, which they eat, they start disappearing, because we are limiting their food. The Ring-tailed lemurs exploit the crop land for their own use, they are not afraid to go out and find different food to eat.
Lemurs might not evolve to adapt to the changes in Madagascar because the changes are happening to fast that the evolutionary process cannot change as fast as these changes are. The biogeochemical cycle that may be altered by anthropogenic activities on Madagascar is the air and the soil. They are cutting down the trees where some of these lemurs live and these trees also help the create air. The soils are changing because of the activities also, they are taking out the original crops and planting new, which creates a different type of soil.
Humans do not realize that Lemurs are just as important as they are. The also do not realize that destroying their environment is causing extinction because Lemurs cannot evolve as fast as the changes in the environment.