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Primates exhibit diverse social systems that are intricately linked to their biology, behavior, and evolution, all of which influence the acquisition and maintenance of their gut microbiomes (GMs). However, most studies of wild primate populations focus on taxa with relatively large group sizes, and few consider pair‐living species. To address this gap, we investigate how a primate's social system interacts with key environmental, social, and genetic variables to shape the GM in pair‐living, red‐bellied lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer). Previous research on this species suggests that social interactions within groups influence interindividual microbiome similarity; however, the impacts of other nonsocial variables and their relative contributions to gut microbial variation remain unclear. We sequenced the 16S ribosomal RNA hypervariable V4–V5 region to characterize the GM from 26 genotyped individuals across 11 social groups residing in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. We estimated the degree to which sex, social group identity, genetic relatedness, dietary diversity, and home range proximity were associated with variation in the gut microbial communities residing in red‐bellied lemurs. All variables except sex played a significant role in predicting GM composition. Our model had high levels of variance inflation, inhibiting our ability to determine which variables were most predictive of gut microbial composition. This inflation is likely due to red‐bellied lemurs' pair‐living, pair‐bonded social system that leads to covariation among environmental, social, and genetic variables. Our findings highlight some of the factors that predict GM composition in a tightly bonded, pair‐living species and identify variables that require further study. We propose that future primate microbiome studies should simultaneously consider environmental, social, and genetic factors to improve our understanding of the relationships among sociality, the microbiome, and primate ecology and evolution. Research Highlights: We highlight diverse social, environmental, and genetic factors that shape the red‐bellied lemur gut microbiome (GM) and encourage additional comparative studies with other pair‐living primate species to further investigate GM variation within the context of a pair‐living social organization.Multicollinearity among predictor variables—likely due to red‐bellied lemurs' social system—hindered our ability to estimate the relative contributions of each variable in predicting GM variation.We caution future microbiome studies to assess their variables for multicollinearity before analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The loss and degradation of forests and other ecosystems worldwide threaten both global biodiversity and the livelihoods of people who use natural resources. Understanding how natural resource use impacts landscape provisioning services for both people and wildlife is thus critical for designing comprehensive resource management strategies. We used data from community focus groups, botanical plots and an inventory of plant species consumed by the Critically Endangered red‐ruffed lemur (Varecia rubra) to assess the availability of key provisioning services for people and endemic wildlife on the Masoala Peninsula, a rainforest transformation landscape, in northeastern Madagascar (Masoala National Park and 13 surrounding communities). We constructed Poisson regression mixed models to evaluate the impact of community factors (i.e. community population size, plot distance to community) and changes over time on the count and species richness of timber trees, medicinal plants and red‐ruffed lemur food trees within botanical plots. Over three‐quarters of all plant species could be used for at least one purpose by local communities (n = 238 species). Of the 59 V. rubra food tree species, only 15% had no reported human use. Timber and ruffed lemur food tree availability declined both with community population size and time and were predicted to be lower outside of Masoala National Park. In contrast, medicinal plant availability was not strongly predicted by any tested factors. Provisioning service availability also differed strongly across sites, suggesting that additional, untested proxies of human pressure likely also have an effect. Our results highlight the importance of evaluating natural resource availability from a community‐based perspective and by resource purpose to inform forest landscape restoration efforts that can support both people and wildlife. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

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Predicting future conservation needs can help inform conservation management but is subject to uncertainty. We measured deforestation rates during 2015–2017 for 114 protected areas in Madagascar, linked deforestation to the status of protection according to IUCN categories I–VI, used recent deforestation rates to extrapolate forest cover over 2017–2050 and linked the size of forest blocks to the projected persistence of lemur subpopulations. In the six IUCN categories for protected areas in Madagascar the median size of forest blocks is 9–37 km2 and median annual deforestation rates range from 0.02% in the single IUCN category III site to 0.19% in category II and 1.95% in category VI sites. In 2017, 40% of all forest blocks within protected areas were < 10 km2, and this is projected to increase to 45% in 2050. Apart from these small forest fragments, the modal site of forest blocks was 160–320 km2 in 2017, and this is projected to decrease to 80–160 km2 in 2050. The range of > 50% of all lemur species exclusively contains forest blocks of < 10 km2. The modal size of forest blocks > 10 km2 is predicted to remain at 120 km2 until 2050. Although uncertainty remains, these analyses provide hope that forest blocks within the protected areas of Madagascar will remain large enough to maintain lemur subpopulations for most species until 2050. This should allow sufficient time for the implementation of effective conservation measures.

Predicting future conservation needs can help inform conservation management but is subject to uncertainty. We measured deforestation rates during 2015–2017 for 114 protected areas in Madagascar, linked deforestation to the status of protection according to IUCN categories I–VI, used recent deforestation rates to extrapolate forest cover over 2017–2050 and linked the size of forest blocks to the projected persistence of lemur subpopulations. In the six IUCN categories for protected areas in Madagascar the median size of forest blocks is 9–37 km2 and median annual deforestation rates range from 0.02% in the single IUCN category III site to 0.19% in category II and 1.95% in category VI sites. In 2017, 40% of all forest blocks within protected areas were < 10 km2, and this is projected to increase to 45% in 2050. Apart from these small forest fragments, the modal site of forest blocks was 160–320 km2 in 2017, and this is projected to decrease to 80–160 km2 in 2050. The range of > 50% of all lemur species exclusively contains forest blocks of < 10 km2. The modal size of forest blocks > 10 km2 is predicted to remain at 120 km2 until 2050. Although uncertainty remains, these analyses provide hope that forest blocks within the protected areas of Madagascar will remain large enough to maintain lemur subpopulations for most species until 2050. This should allow sufficient time for the implementation of effective conservation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the major forces driving variation in gut microbiomes enhances our understanding of how and why symbioses between hosts and microbes evolved. Gut prokaryotic community variation is often closely associated with host evolutionary and ecological variables. Whether these same factors drive variation in other microbial taxa occupying the animal gut remains largely untested. Here, we present a one-to-one comparison of gut prokaryotic (16S rRNA metabarcoding) and microeukaryotic (18S rRNA metabarcoding) community patterning among 12 species of wild lemurs. Lemurs were sampled from dry forests and rainforests of southeastern Madagascar and display a range of phylogenetic and ecological niche diversity. We found that while lemur gut prokaryotic community diversity and composition vary with host taxonomy, diet, and habitat, gut microeukaryotic communities have no detectable association with any of these factors. We conclude that gut microeukaryotic community composition is largely random, while gut prokaryotic communities are conserved among host species. It is likely that a greater proportion of gut microeukaryotic communities comprise taxa with commensal, transient, and/or parasitic symbioses compared with gut prokaryotes, many of which form long-term relationships with the host and perform important biological functions. Our study highlights the importance of greater specificity in microbiome research; the gut microbiome contains many "omes" (e.g., prokaryome, eukaryome), each comprising different microbial taxa shaped by unique selective pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal abundance is determined by a number of factors, including vegetation structure, food availability and quality, human activities, predation risk, and disease. Vegetation structure, food availability, and human activity often are used to guide conservation efforts, such as protected area zoning and reforestation, especially for primates. We sought to determine whether Critically Endangered golden-crowned sifaka (Propithecus tattersalli) densities could be predicted across a heterogeneous landscape as a function of vegetation structure, food availability, and human activity. We conducted walking transect surveys across the sifakas' entire global range in Loky-Manambato Protected Area of Madagascar from 2016–2018, expanding upon a study conducted in 2006/2008. Potential predictors of sifaka density included metrics of vegetation structure (e.g., tree density, forest type), food availability (e.g., food tree basal area, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)), and human activity (e.g., tree cutting, livestock grazing). Low-intensity tree cutting and wet season NDVI were the best, positive predictors of sifaka densities. Sifaka densities within study units across their restricted range (880 km2) were highly variable (range: 6.8–78.1 sifakas/km2), emphasizing the importance of large-scale study designs across all suitable land cover types for assessing a species' abundance, regardless of its area of occupancy. We estimated that 10,222–12,631 sifakas remain. Based on previous surveys, this indicates that populations either remained stable over the past 20 years or have declined by 30–43% in the past 10 years; we argue that a decline is most likely based on our updating of forest cover estimates for both of the prior studies. We also found that wet season NDVI is a positive predictor of sifaka densities, which will aid managers in prioritizing conservation actions in this region using widely available remotely sensed data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gut microbiome can mediate host metabolism, including facilitating energy-saving strategies like hibernation. The dwarf lemurs of Madagascar (Cheirogaleus spp.) are the only obligate hibernators among primates. They also hibernate in the subtropics, and unlike temperate hibernators, fatten by converting fruit sugars to lipid deposits, torpor at relatively warm temperatures, and forage for a generalized diet after emergence. Despite these ecological differences, we might expect hibernation to shape the gut microbiome in similar ways across mammals. We, therefore, compare gut microbiome profiles, determined by amplicon sequencing of rectal swabs, in wild furry-eared dwarf lemurs (C. crossleyi) during fattening, hibernation, and after emergence. The dwarf lemurs exhibited reduced gut microbial diversity during fattening, intermediate diversity and increased community homogenization during hibernation, and greatest diversity after emergence. The Mycoplasma genus was enriched during fattening, whereas the Aerococcaceae and Actinomycetaceae families, and not Akkermansia , bloomed during hibernation. As expected, the dwarf lemurs showed seasonal reconfigurations of the gut microbiome; however, the patterns of microbial diversity diverged from temperate hibernators, and better resembled the shifts associated with dietary fruits and sugars in primates and model organisms. Our results thus highlight the potential for dwarf lemurs to probe microbiome-mediated metabolism in primates under contrasting conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primates acquire gut microbiota from conspecifics through direct social contact and shared environmental exposures. Host behaviour is a prominent force in structuring gut microbial communities, yet the extent to which group or individual‐level forces shape the long‐term dynamics of gut microbiota is poorly understood. We investigated the effects of three aspects of host sociality (social groupings, dyadic interactions, and individual dispersal between groups) on gut microbiome composition and plasticity in 58 wild Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) from six social groups. Over the course of three dry seasons in a 5‐year period, the six social groups maintained distinct gut microbial signatures, with the taxonomic composition of individual communities changing in tandem among coresiding group members. Samples collected from group members during each season were more similar than samples collected from single individuals across different years. In addition, new immigrants and individuals with less stable social ties exhibited elevated rates of microbiome turnover across seasons. Our results suggest that permanent social groupings shape the changing composition of commensal and mutualistic gut microbial communities and thus may be important drivers of health and resilience in wild primate populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Madagascar is a threatened global biodiversity hotspot and conservation priority, yet we lack broad‐scale surveys to assess biodiversity across space and time. To fill this gap, we collated camera trap surveys, capturing species occurrences within Madagascar into a single standardized database. This data set includes nine distinct protected areas of Madagascar and encompasses 13 subprojects, 38 camera arrays, and 1156 sampling units (independent camera site per survey) within two important biodiversity eco‐regions: western dry deciduous forest and eastern humid rainforest. Camera surveys were conducted from June 2007 to January 2021. The final data set includes 17 unique families of mammals (Bovidae, Canidae, Cheirogaleidae, Daubentoniidae, Equidae, Eupleridae, Felidae, Hominidae, Indriidae, Lemuridae, Lepilemuridae, Muridae, Nesomyidae, Pteropodidae, Soricidae, Suidae, Tenrecidae) comprising 45 species and 27 unique families of birds (Accipitridae, Acrocephalidae, Alcedinidae, Bernieridae, Brachypteraciidae, Caprimulgidae, Cisticolidae, Columbidae, Coraciidae, Corvidae, Cuculidae, Dicruridae, Mesitornithidae, Monarchidae, Motacillidae, Muscicapidae, Numididae, Phasianidae, Rallidae, Sarothruridae, Strigidae, Sturnidae, Sulidae, Threskiornithidae, Upupidae, Vangidae, Zosteropidae) comprising 58 species. Images were processed and verified by individual project data set creators and camera operation and species tables were then collated. The final product represents the first broad‐scale freely available standardized formal faunal database for Madagascar. Data are available through this publication and at DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5801806. These data will be useful for examining species‐level and community‐level trends in occurrence across space or time within Madagascar and globally, evaluating native and invasive species dynamics, and will aid in determining species conservation status and planning for at‐risk species. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]