Lemurs may be critical to the regeneration of Madagascar Forests, according to Jorg Ganzhorn, a researcher from the German Primate Center at Hamburg University. In most tropical rainforests up to 90 percent of all tree species rely on animals for the dispersal of their seeds. Ganzhorn's research shows that these forests fail to regenerate completely on their own without help from the brown lemur. This is a unique result. In other forests, the guild of seed dispersers is redundant.
Lemurs are among Madagascar's most endangered species.
Madagascar's once-rich array of wildlife has been decimated by habitat destruction and by its growing human population's need for usable land and forest products. Much of the land is under constant pressure from illegal logging, burning and over-farming. The problem is critical for lemurs, because they are native only to Madagascar. Since people arrived in Madagascar some 2,000 years ago, an estimated 97 percent of the island's dry deciduous western forests have been destroyed and those that remain are extremely fragmented. Restoring these forests is one of the highest conservation priorities worldwide, according to a 1995 United Nation's Development Program workshop.