Postdoctoral Research Associate
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Mitchell Irwin
email: mitchell.irwin [at] mcgill.ca |
As more of the world’s tropical forests become fragmented and degraded, the question of how biological diversity is maintained in forest fragments becomes ever more important. Some animals show remarkable flexibility in adapting to novel, disturbed and discontinuous environments, while others do not. In my research, I look in-depth at the ecological strategy of a primate species, the diademed sifaka (Propithecus diadema) as it adapts to life in small, disturbed forest fragments in eastern Madagascar. The lemurs of Madagascar constitute a unique primate radiation that evolved in isolation from primates on other land masses, and many species are directly threatened through forest loss, fragmentation and other human activities. In order to prevent massive extinctions in coming years, it will be necessary to curb forest loss through action on national and international levels. However, given that large proportions of most species’ geographic ranges are already fragmented and disturbed, understanding the ecological effects of fragmentation will leave us better-equipped to manage these threatened populations.
I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate based at the Redpath Museum (McGill University). Currently, I am following up on several unanswered questions generated during my Ph.D. research at Stony Brook University. That research documented the shifts in diet, ranging and spatial ecology that diademed sifakas undergo in forest fragments, but changes in nutritional ecology, physiologic health and the prevalence of disease and parasitism remain unexplored. It is these research directions that I am currently investigating.
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Download my curriculum vitae (updated: August 1, 2009) |