CSBR: Living Stocks: Support of the Duke Lemur Center for the Study of Primate Biology and History

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

This award will partially support operations of the Duke Lemur Center (DLC). The DLC is a unique living stock collection of the world's most endangered and biologically diverse primates, the lemurs of Madagascar. The colony is the product of more than 50 years of captive breeding, institutional exchange, and initially, animals caught in the wild. Lemurs are unique to the biodiversity hotspot of Madagascar, and due to their critically-endangered status, are not a renewable resource. The DLC is an exceptional training ground for students across all ages and academic levels. Over its 50-year history, thousands of students ranging from K-12 through postgraduate levels have been engaged in and inspired by their experiences at the DLC. Also, hundreds of thousands of visitors from the general public have been exposed to the concepts of biodiversity discovery and conservation, as well as the power of biological research via their exposure to the DLC's staff, students, and collections. The DLC serves as a living laboratory for advancing interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and biological conservation, covering biological disciplines ranging from behavioral ecology to brain sciences, evolutionary ecology, microbial metagenomics, comparative genomics, biomechanics, One Health disease dynamics, aging and demography, biodiversity conservation, paleontology, climate change, comparative physiology, speciation genetics, sensory biology, and more. The award will help the DLC meet its short and long-term goals, which include improving support for undergraduate research projects, engaging in exchanges and loan agreements to maintain and enhance species and genetic diversity, and harnessing new technologies to improve comparative biological research involving lemurs. The research and colony-care programs that will be supported by this project have oversight from a dedicated team of professionals who collectively represent five PhDs, three Masters degrees, two DVMs, and additively, more than two hundred years of direct experience with lemur research, health, husbandry, conservation, and captive management. The DLC is the only place in the world where lemurs are readily available to investigators, and where biological samples, decades of medical records, fossil representatives of extinct taxa, and rich life-history are available for comparative studies. Access to colony inventories, demographics, metadata and research opportunities is available on-line (lemur.duke.edu). The DLC serves multiple educational communities, including the general public, K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students. For K-12 students, activities include summer camps and a variety of classroom learning and interactive activities with increasing engagement in long-distance learning through on-line tools for educational outreach. The veterinary department also supports educational activities via undergraduate work-study opportunities and veterinary student training. Critically, the DLC is committed to conservation activities via both ex situ captive management and extensive community-based Madagascar programs. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.