During the lifetime of this grant, co-PI Morgan Chaney made two trips to Ranomafana National Park in southeastern Madagascar, one trip in January, 2020 and another in November, 2023. Between these two journeys, we collected ultra-rare tissue samples from 14 separate lemurs across three species: the primary subject of the research (the golden bamboo lemur, Hapalemur aureus) and two comparison species (the red-fronted brown lemur, Eulemur rufifrons; and the greater bamboo lemur, Prolemur simus). With the assistance of veterinarian Dr. Tsiky Rajaonarivelo, we collected blood draws from six E. rufifrons individuals and five H. aureus. As we originally intended, these draws will be used for work to analyze and identify genes expressed in the blood of bamboo lemurs, but this phase of the project was severely hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, all of these samples are still in storage in Madagascar, frozen in a protective solution that will aid in the preservation of the molecular information therein. Future work will build on this project over the next year under the mentorship of co-PI Chaney’s postdoctoral supervisor, Dr. Christina Bergey, at Rutgers University. Additionally, we dissected three previously deceased bamboo lemurs: two H. aureus that had died from natural causes and one P. simus which died in captivity during a recent translocation attempt. All of these deaths were unrelated to the present project. During these dissections, DNA-rich tissues were collected and high-quality DNA was purified from these to be used for genomic sequencing. Additionally, photos and measurements were taken to complete novel descriptions of the specialized or unique anatomical traits of bamboo lemurs. These descriptions are currently in progress, and we expect them to result in one or two peer-reviewed articles.

While our original plan involved the importation of tissues to the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic made this unfeasible. Therefore, after much forethought, we switched strategies to complete all data generation within the country of Madagascar. To this end, we sequenced many gigabytes of genomic DNA using the Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencer. At the time of writing this report, we can confirm at least 700 GB of usable data, and this number will increase as we continue to work through the raw sequencing files generated during the most recent research trip. In all, we are confident that a very complete genome assembly will result from this trove of data in the coming year, and this genome will be crucial in homing in on these lemurs’ adaptations for coping with prodigious amounts of dietary cyanide.

Also during the lifetime of this grant, we collaborated with colleagues to publish an article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0346), and we have an article under review with a second journal (preprint: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.06.570463). Additionally, this grant supported the successful completion of a doctoral dissertation (http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1681985358621505) and therefore contributed enormously to co-PI Chaney’s scientific training.

Last Modified: 01/13/2024
Modified by: Morgan E Chaney