Scientists join forces to save Madagascar wildlife

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaping lemurs and crawling ants are part of a massive plan to save Madagascar's wildlife, using a new method that could be applied to other "hot spots" of biodiversity, researchers said on Thursday.

Drawing on decades of field research about 2,315 species found only on the island nation off Africa's east coast, conservation scientists have mapped out a way to protect all these animals and plants, instead of concentrating on only a few and hoping that saves many of the others, too.

Earlier efforts have focused on one so-called umbrella species -- such as China's giant pandas or photogenic big-eyed lemurs in Madagascar -- on the theory that saving the habitat of these high-profile creatures will also save nearby species.

That is not necessarily so, said Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-lead researcher on the project, whose results were published on Thursday in the journal Science.

"That's one of the very clear findings of our study: if you develop a plan to protect all the lemur species, you're not going to get all the frog species ... You're going to miss a lot," Kremen said by telephone.

LEMURS, BUTTERFLIES AND GECKOS

Dozens of scientists and other workers collected data on the exact locations of wildlife across Madagascar, from lemurs to ants, butterflies, frogs, geckos and plants, then used this information to estimate the range of each species and determine which regions were most vital to saving the greatest number of species.

Species that have already lost habitat because of deforestation were given higher priority in the plan because of their greater risk of extinction.