PhD Project - Valeria Ferrario
Name: Valeria
Surname: Ferrario
Tutor (surname): Achaz Von Hardenberg, Claire Raisin, Cristina Giacoma
website: https://www.chesterzoo.org/what-we-do/our-zoo/biographies/dr-claire-raisin/
Madagascar is one of the main biodiversity hotspots globally, but its biodiversity is in danger. Lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, and the large majority of the 106 species of this taxon are nowadays on the brink of extinction. One of the most threatened species is Indri indri, the largest extant lemur. Indri is diurnal, frugivorous and inhabits the rainforests of eastern Madagascar. No individuals survived in captivity, and, further, Indris are iconic umbrella species of habitats under strong anthropogenic pressure: the Malagasy rainforests.
According to the last IUCN Red List report, Indri is Critically Endangered, with an estimate of individuals between 1.000 and 10.000. The decline rate of the species will continue, and we need more data on its distribution and abundance to draw a long-term conservation plan.
The project focuses on estimating actual Indris population abundance and distribution to build a conservation plan. Indri is a singing primate: individuals sing in family choruses, producing vocal displays in which one or more group members emit a sequence of notes. For this reason, we will apply Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), a non-invasive method for surveying wild animals using autonomous recording technologies such as microphone arrays. Our main objective will be to record Indri’s songs, extract individuals’ presence/absence from the recordings with an automated detection algorithm, and with these data, model their distribution. We will also estimate group size, sex and age class with an innovative acoustic analysis of the individual contribution to the chorus. Using acoustic indices as proxies, we will also use the recordings to identify the presence of other species, estimate biodiversity status and anthropic disturbance levels.
We expect this project to be a long-term collaborative project managed by Malagasy associations guides that will help manage protected areas in Madagascar and reduce the extinction risk of Indris.
