CLIMATE CHANGE KILLING FAVORITE FOOD OF LEMUR SPECIES

10/30/2017

Longer dry seasons due to climate change affecting the growth of bamboo shoots are forcing the greater bamboo lemur to subsist on the less nutritious woody trunk of the plant for longer periods of time. A 2014 assessment found that numbers of the animal are down 80 percent in just the last three decades, attributing the decline to deforestation and habitat destruction for farming, logging and mining. An examination of the fossil record revealed that greater bamboo lemurs once inhabited a lot more of Madagascar. Now, however, they’re confined to places that have the shortest dry seasons, suggesting that the food source available there may be critical to their survival. For the full story see https://news.mongabay.com/2017/10/lemur-species-losing-favorite-food-to….