Newswise — Frank Cuozzo, University of North Dakota assistant professor of anthropology, is known to pop in a favorite copy of the animated movie "Madagascar" from time to time during his classes in Babcock Hall.
You know, the tale about four zoo inmates — a lion, zebra, giraffe and hippo — who escape from their New York City confinement only to end up on a ship bound for Madagascar, where they run into a band of party-loving lemurs. Yes, that movie.
Oh, just ask your kids.
With a look that says "I'm serious even though you don't think I am," Cuozzo tells UND Discovery the classroom showings are purely educational.
"I tell the class, 'Let's look at the way the movie portrays lemurs. What did they get right and what did they get wrong?'"
He goes on, "For instance, in the movie they have a character who is the 'King of the Lemurs', but that could never happen among ringtailed lemurs because they are a female-dominant species."
Roughing it
The movie serves as an effective learning tool on subjects that Cuozzo is passionate about: Madagascar and lemurs. In a twisted sort of way, the characters in the movie are a reflection of Cuozzo, a New Jersey native who grew up only a taxi commute from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It's a place he frequents regularly to conduct research even today while serving as a UND professor.
Each year for the past six years, Cuozzo and a team of scientists have been traveling to a remote region of southern Madagascar, an island nation about the size of California and much of Oregon combined, to study the endangered ringtailed lemurs that live at the Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve. The Beza Mahafaly Lemur Biology Project team spends between two and three months living in tents and buying sustenance off the local economy in one of most rural areas of one of the poorest countries on the planet.
Just to get to the conservation reserve from Toliara, the provincial capital, a traveler would take an eight-hour ride on a makeshift bus, often a crudely configured flatbed truck with seats affixed with nails, followed by a six-hour trek by oxcart.
"You are completely isolated," Cuozzo said. Madagascar is about 10,000 miles from Grand Forks.
Dental clues
Cuozzo and his colleagues are studying threats posed to the local ringtailed lemur population. What they've found is that overgrazing by cattle herds has decimated the supply of soft fruits and other palatable lemur delights outside of the conservation zone. This forces the lemurs high into the trees above the degraded areas to feed on the tough pods of the fruit from the tamarind tree. The change in diet has been too rapid for the lemurs' bodies to adapt, causing intense tooth wear and severe oral infections that impact their overall health.
Scientists call such disproportionate effects on a species caused by quick environmental changes "evolutionary disequilibrium."
Cuozzo has taken a page out of the old science handbook, developing a new method he calls "dental ecology" and applying it to his study on lemurs by using teeth as a marker of habitat degradation.
"It's kind of a new twist," he said. "We're showing you can use tooth wear in a new way. You can use dental pathology as a marker for environmental changes."
A bigger zone
Cuozzo, along with Michelle Sauther, from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Ibrahim Antho Jacky Youssouf, a native Malagasy from the University of Toliara in Madagascar, successfully aided local people and the Malagasy government in expanding the lemur conservation zone from about 1,500 acres to the current nearly 10,000 acres. They and their colleagues did this by going into nearby villages and towns and seeking local people's opinions on the lemur conservation project, and by providing detailed information on the status of the remaining lemurs in the region. All sides worked together to craft agreements that would allow the locals and the conservation zone to co-exist.
Their efforts to expand the conservation reserve and the work they are doing with lemurs earned the project prestigious recognition over the summer at the International Primatological Society's Biannual Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.Cuozzo concentrates on dental impacts related to the lemurs' habitat, while Sauther is a primate health and behavior specialist. Jacky Youssouf is a doctoral student who serves as chief of research at the conservation reserve. The stateside anthropologists keep in routine contact with Jacky Youssouf as he monitors the lemurs year round.
"It has led to synergies that helped us do things that we would never be able to do ourselves," Cuozzo said.
Aspiring anthropologist
The team picked up its newest member this year in UND undergraduate Jenifer Ness, a native of Bismarck. She made her first visit to Madagascar with the team following final tests last spring.
Ness spent her time collecting scat samples from feral dogs and large wildcats — presumed predators of lemurs — and a direct, albeit, unnatural threat to the endangered animals. She painstakingly sifted through the samples, finding remnants of lemur parts. It allowed her to document a direct correlation between the nontraditional predators and the declining population of lemurs.
Cuozzo was impressed with the dedication and professionalism exhibited by Ness as an undergraduate researcher under trying conditions.
"This has been an amazing opportunity for her," Cuozzo said. "I wish I had had that kind of opportunity as an undergrad."
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