Lisa Gould

• December 2018: Dr. Gould has retired and is no longer accepting graduate students.

I have been conducting research on ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) behavior and ecology in Madagascar since 1987. My research has focused on a number of themes: ecology, socio-ecology, behavioral endocrinology, demography and conservation of Endangered Lemur catta (the ring-tailed lemur). This primate is an ecologically flexible, female-dominant species, which lives in mixed-sex groups and inhabits gallery, xerophytic, scrub and spiny desert forests, high-altitude ericoid bush, and rocky outcrop fragments in southern, south-central and southwestern Madagascar. Because of their marked ecological plasticity (found in seven distinct habitat types), much of this research relates to evolutionary adaptations to natural habitats, as well as recent adaptations to anthropogenically-disturbed environments. 

Specific projects that I have conducted on ring-tailed lemurs over the years include: infant development and alloparenting, male sociality, sex differences in anti-predator behavior, demography and life-history, population responses to natural disasters, behavioral endocrinology (mating and post-mating stress and sex hormones and correlations with aggressive behavior in adult males, pregnancy and lactation hormones and aggression in reproductive females), feeding and nutritional ecology, and effects of fragmentation on isolated populations. I've worked with L. catta populations in gallery forests, spiny desert, and rupicolous rocky outcrop forest fragments.

These projects have been funded by Conservation International, NSERC, National Geographic Society, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and NSF.

In the past few years, I have also been active in conservation efforts related to L. catta populations. Once thought to be numerous throughout their geographic range, in 2012 I compiled data from a number of sites where L. catta are/were known, and determined that, in fact, most populations are very small  (<200), isolated, and are at great risk of local population extinction. These data helped to boost the IUCN conservation status of this species two categories from 'Near Threatened' to 'Endangered'. It is likely that many populations will go extinct within the next decade, due to recent illegal logging and overhunting for the illegal bushmeat trade. I am a member of the IUCN Madagascar Primate Species Survival Plan committee as well as a member of the Interational Primatological Society's Conservation committee. I've also been engaged in community-level conservation projects in the south-central highlands of Madagascar.

Over the years, my graduate students (both masters and Ph.D.) have studied ring-tailed lemurs, Verreaux's sifaka, Indri, Diademed sifaka, and Japanese macaques. They have based their thesis/dissertation topics on a wide-range of topics, e.g. social and ecological adaptations, behavioral endocrinology, nutritional and feeding ecology, anti-predator behavior, parasitology, and population genetics.

Interests

• Primate ecology
• Lemurs
• Conservation
• Madagascar

Selected publications