Which quadrant of the habitat would the Coquerel Sifaka perform the most diverse activities?

If we divide the habitat into four different quadrants then the Coquerel Sifakas will always return to where there is more greenery because Sifakas are most commonly found in the evergreens, jumping from tree to tree and so the Sifakas are expected to do the most activities there. ( (

This divernal vertical clinger and leaper is most commonly found in mixed decidous and evergreen forests Sifakas spend most of their time in trees when foraging, they leap effortlessly from tree to tree launching themselves vertically with their strong legs Sifakas have a diet of bark, and leaves Sifakas generally prefer elevation of 800 meter and above They also prefer habitats with large trees and various forest types The island of Madagascar is the only place lemurs exist in the wild. Some species live exclusively in patches of dry forests near razor-sharp rock formations. Lemurs travel the trees, looking for leaves. They need protein-rich leaves which provide essential nutrients They are only found in dry forest and isolated areas

1. Visit the Madagascar exhibit in the Bronx Zoo 2. Divide the habitat into four zones (A,B,C,D) 3. Create an ethogram with 15 second intervals starting at 0 and ending at 7 minutes 4. Use your stopwatch to keep time and every 15 seconds record what zone the Sifaka is currently in at the time and their behavior during the 15 second interval 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the second visit to the zoo

Average Number of Times an Action by the Coquerrel Sifaka Takes Place During a 7 Minute Time Period Seconds

When we went to the zoo we divided the Sifaka’s habitat into 4 quadrants, A, B, C, and D. We wanted to know how the quadrant location would affect the behavior of the Sifaka. The habitat wouldn’t change but the way the Sifaka behaves depends on its environment and where it feels most comfortable. The quadrant A was the upper left hand side which was full of tree top branches, quadrant B was the upper right hand side and was a clearing with rock lining the side. Quadrant C was the lower left hand side of the habitat and had rock formations and small bushes on the ground, and lastly quadrant D was the lower right hand side and was filled with greenery, which the Sifaka’s got there food from. The constants of the experiment were the habitat, amount of lemurs, time intervals, and the temperature.

The Coqurel Sifaka prefers to be in elevated areas as opposed to zones on the ground. Our hypothesis is supported by our data. The lemurs were mainly in zones A, and B which were more elevated than zones C and D. The most diverse behaviors were observed in quadrants A and B. It can be inferred that the areas the lemurs are mostly in, are the ones they prefer.

From the data collected the average amount of times the two lemurs were in zone A is 20 seconds and for zone B is 17 seconds. To prove that the lemurs prefer elevated areas, the average amount of times that the lemurs went into zone C is 7 seconds and for zone D is 11 seconds. Zone A was the most frequently used zone during the 15 second intervals. It had the most greenery meaning it had more bark to eat and more branches to swing on and off of. The least used zone in the habitat was zone C which was filled with large rock formations and small bushes. The rock formations didn’t give the lemurs access to swing on anything. The bushes also wouldn’t give the lemurs much nutrients since it would be harder to eat the leaves and there isn’t any bark to eat as well. In quadrant A the activities of licking, jumping, resting, wrestling, swinging, sitting, eating, grooming mating and pooping were observed and in quadrant be we observed actions such as resting, hanging. Swinging sitting, eating, grooming and pooping similar to quadrant A. in quadrant C actions that were observed were sitting and eating while sitting, swinging, and eating were observed in quadrant D which proves the more activity was performed in the elevated areas.

Coquerrel Sifakas are diurnal meaning they are active during the day and rest at night. Half their waking hours are spent foraging for food. Lemurs choose to sleep higher up in the trees since the fossa takes lemurs that it can snatch out of trees. They hide in trees from predators such as hawks and eagles. Sifakas are aboreal which means they mostly live in trees and have adapted habitat by constantly jumping around. They live in social groups and spend a majority of their time sleeping, grooming and feeding.

Our hypothesis was supported by our data. Possible limitation could be who controlled the stopwatch, the person who recorded the information, an inaccuracy in the time intervals. If we were to able to change something about the experiment we would lengthen the amount of time spent at the zoo to take more trials. The more trials would give us a better understanding of the preferable zones of the Coquerel Sifaka. Another possible change we would make is to ignore interruptions such as visitors of the zoo. We also noticed that the behavior of the Sifaka changes due to the actions of the visitors. For example when there were many people present, the Siafakas tend to hide. To extend the experiment we can observe their activity in the daytime and night and compare their behavior to see which zones are preferred at different times. Another way to extend this experiment we could observe the Sifakas over an hours time as oppose to 7 minutes.

/ / sifaka/ sifaka/