Programs for 2009

Any interested party meeting the minimum requirement of having successfully completed a university-level biology course or a course in biological anthropology may apply to the Primatology Field Methods Program. The course may be taken for college credit either through the student's home institution or through Portland State University. Enrollment is limited to 10 students and includes an intensive week-long session in a natural habitat reserve, the Lemur Conservation Foundation’s Myakka City Lemur Reserve in Florida. 

The course will introduce students to methods used for collecting behavioral and ecological data on free-ranging primates through a combination of lectures and field exercises.  These will include development of ethograms, sampling methods, recording rules, mapping sites and animal movements, and estimating resource availability.  By the end of this course students will be able to assess whether their interests lie in gaining further advanced training in primatology, such as graduate training or a field or lab assistantship with a senior scientist.

For complete information on the course, dates, deadlines, application materials, click here.

In March 2002, eight students from the University of Miami became the first field trainees at the the reserve. These students, along with Dr. Taylor and Marsha Fernandez, Curator of the primate collection at the Audubon Park Zoo in New Orleans, spent six days honing their field research skills and becoming future conservationists. Since that first group, Dr. Taylor has brought many University of Miami students to the reserve each spring for an enriching and enlightening ex situ experience.

Because of its mixture of lemur species inhabiting a common area, the Myakka City Lemur Reserve (MCLR) offers a unique situation to young researchers. Dr. Linda Taylor, a member of our Scientific Advisory Committee, and an integral part of our annual Teachers Institute for Conservation Biology, a program for high school teachers, writes of the experience:

"Nowhere else can researchers access so many free-ranging lemurs. There are other colonies, but none have such complex mixed-species habitats. For example, it has been recently proposed that Bamboo lemurs (Hapalemur griseus) and Ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) may be much more closely related than current taxonomy suggests... Only at the MCLR, is it possible to observe the two species in a common habitat and to document their behavior. There are research questions best suited to a captive population with excellent control over experimental variables. There are other questions best suited to natural habitats, where we can observe the choices the lemurs make in regards to food, travel, and social partners. The MCLR is exceptional in that it provides researchers and their students both kinds of settings simultaneously."

"Further, the MCLR offers an unparalleled opportunity to teach field methods because of the lemurs who range in a complex forest habitat...Only the MCLR offers a setting in which students can follow the animals as they range in a forest, making daily choices of where to go and with whom, and on what to feed. Using the forest enclosure as a microcosm of a larger research site, students move through the forest, following and observing the animals on an imaginary grid, or transect, the way they would in the wild. Among their many assignments are weighing animals, extracting DNA samples from hair, fingerprinting, making vocal recordings, GPA mapping, establishing a trail system, photographing and recording food plants, etc. Skills learned at the reserve are applicable to all settings and other primate species as well."

"The computer facilities provided also support students through on-site analyses of the day’s data collection...Learning data analyses on site is critical to forming excellent work habits early in a scientist’s career."

"The physical facilities at MCLR are also marvelous for researchers and students... The covered platform in the enclosure can be used as both an open-air classroom and a floor on which the students can pitch their tents and have their first night in the "field" in a safe setting. Learning continues over meals and free time, often in the company of more advanced students or scientists who are also working in the forest...The Myakka City Lemur Reserve then becomes a campus for inspiring and building the conservation experts who will affect the sustainability of global diversity in the future."

"The library that is in development will be another invaluable research and teaching tool on-site. Nowhere else can students have access to a collection of materials devoted to lemur studies... As the library resource grows, it will offer a very important means of teaching students how to do the preparatory phase of field work, namely the literature review."

Updated 10/06/08