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Hello, My name is Pedro Crespo, I am 17 years old, I am from Coimbra,My class is 11ºTIS/TC and I´m going to present my work about the Endangered Animals

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I have chosen the lemur because I want to share it´s information and learn a little bit more about lemurs

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Quase todas as espécies de lémures estão ameaçadas de extinção, indica um estudo do Grupo Especialista em Primatas da União Internacional para a Conservação da Natureza ( IUCN na sigla em inglês). Das 111 espécies e subespécies de lémures conhecidas, todas elas exclusivas de Madagáscar, 105 estão sob ameaça.

O investigador Russ Mittermeier, do grupo Conservação da Vida Selvagem Global, destaca o "alto risco de extinção dos lémures únicos de Madagáscar" e salienta as graves ameaças à biodiversidade da ilha. "As espécies únicas e maravilhosas de Madagáscar são o seu maior ativo", disse à BBC.

Fatores como a destruição dos seus habitats na floresta tropical, na sequência de cortes e queimadas para fins agrícolas, a exploração ilegal de madeira, a produção de carvão e a exploração de minerais têm contribuído para a redução do número de espécies e subespécies. Acrescem a caça para consumo humano e a captura com o objetivo de servirem como animais de estimação.

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"Cada vez mais vemos níveis insustentáveis de caça furtiva de lémures. Também temos vindo a assistir a uma caça comercial, provavelmente para restaurantes locais. Isto é um novo fenómeno para Madagáscar, uma vez que há mais de 15 anos não assistíamos a uma escala semelhante", disse o professor Christoph Schwitzer, da Sociedade Zoológica de Bristol, no Reino Unido, que também desempenha o cargo de vice-presidente do Grupo Especialista em Primatas da IUCN.

As conclusões podem ser alarmantes, mas o objetivo do processo de avaliação passa por rever as últimas investigações, com o objetivo de encontrar as prioridades mais urgentes em matéria de conservação.

Recentemente, o grupo organizou um workshop para avaliar de forma oficial o estado da conservação de todas as espécies analisadas. Os dados recolhidos permitem atualizar a Lista Vermelha das Espécies Ameaçadas, disponível na internet. Nesta lista constam 44 espécies em perigo, sendo 38 de forma crítica, enquanto outras 23 encontram-se vulneráveis. Desde que se realizou o workshop anterior, em julho de 2012, registou-se um aumento de 12 espécies ameaçadas.

A IUCN também tem vindo a implementar um "plano de ação para os lémures", numa tentativa de salvar estes animais. Para já, é preciso proteger os habitats onde grande parte das espécies ameaçadas vivem e combater o problema através do ecoturismo, no sentido de convencer as pessoas a não dependerem da caça ilegal a estes animais.

"As pessoas que gostam de lémures precisam de gritar sobre estes problemas e espalhar a mensagem lá fora. Quando publicámos o plano de ação dos lémures, que mereceu a atenção dos media, passámos a receber chamadas de pessoas para oferecer ajuda, para doar dinheiro ou outros recursos. E isso realmente pode fazer a diferença", contou o professor Schwitzer.

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Quase todas as espécies de lémures estão ameaçadas de extinção, indica um estudo do Grupo Especialista em Primatas da União Internacional para a Conservação da Natureza ( IUCN na sigla em inglês). Das 111 espécies e subespécies de lémures conhecidas, todas elas exclusivas de Madagáscar, 105 estão sob ameaça.

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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/group/sifakas/

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Plants and trees that once relied on a particular species of lemur to spread their seeds may also be headed for extinction.

smithsonianmag.com

The human-driven extinction of fruit-eating lemurs on Madagascar has created multiple "orphan" plant species with precarious futures because their primary seed dispersers are gone, scientists say.

The findings, detailed in this week's issue of the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have implications for conservation efforts not only in Madagascar, but around the world.

Among the world's most unique primates, lemurs play a vital role in Madagascar as seed dispersers for many plants and are essential for maintaining healthy and diverse forests on the island. Fruits make up a large part of many lemurs' diets, and the animals will often ingest whole seeds and then poop them out far from the parent tree, thus helping the plants spread.

"In other tropical areas, the primary seed dispersers are birds, but in Madagascar, that's not the case," says study first-author Sarah Federman, a graduate student at Yale University. "The burden of seed dispersal falls mainly on lemurs, of which there are very few."

That number is dwindling even further. Scientists estimate that in the past few thousand years, at least 17 lemur species on Madagascar have been driven to extinction by human activity, through either direct hunting or loss of habitat.

To investigate how these extinctions have affected Madagascar's forests, Federman and her team matched the diets of extinct lemurs with the seeds of plants on the island, including some plant species that scientists suspected were "orphans"--plants that did not have any existing animal seed dispersers.

To infer whether the extinct lemurs were capable of eating and dispersing the seeds, the group analyzed the animals' gape sizes-how wide their jaws could open-as well as other clues, such as their tooth shapes and dental wear.

The scientists concluded that many of the extinct lemur species they examined had once indeed been seed dispersers. Furthermore, one large extinct lemur in particular, called Pachylemur, was likely the primary disperser for a group of orphan plants on the island called Canarium. More than 30 Canarium tree species are found on Madagascar, and the largest of these have seeds that resemble large olives and are too big for Madagascar's existing lemurs to eat.

Bereft of their main seed dispersers, today's Canariums must rely on less-effective secondary dispersers such as strong winds and rodents to spread their seeds, but their days could be numbered, Federman and her team concluded.

The group also identified living lemur species-including several endangered species-that occupy essential dispersal niches. If these lemurs also disappear, the scientists warn, the health and diversity of Madagascar's forests could be jeopardized.

Mauro Galetti, an ecologist at Paulo State University in Brazil, says the new findings foreshadow what could happen in many other regions, such as continental Africa, Asia and South America, as large fruit-eating animals such as elephants, gorillas, and rhinos are driven to extinction.

"More and more we find evidence for the importance of large frugivores [(fruit-eaters)]to our planet," says Galetti, who was not involved in the study.

Federman says her group's findings have practical and even philosophical ramifications for species conservation.

"Traditionally, conservation tended to be species-specific ... but now people are moving toward more ecosystem-level projects because we've realized that you can't protect a species in a vacuum," she says. "Our analysis facilitates thinking about how Madagascar's lemurs fit into their ecosystems, but it also raises the question of what do you do with a tree that can no longer disperse its seeds. Do we intervene? Or do we just let it go extinct?"

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Lemur Extinctions Are Harmful to Madagascar's Plant Life, Too

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smithsonianmag.com The human-driven extinction of fruit-eating lemurs on Madagascar has created multiple "orphan" plant species with precarious futures because their primary seed dispersers are gone, scientists say. The findings, detailed in this week's issue of the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have implications for conservation efforts not only in Madagascar, but around the world.

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I used this presentation to learn a lot about lemurs.
Most of this I didn't knew yet.

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Lemurs - Coggle Diagram: Lemurs (Solutions about the deforestation, Threats (Desforestation, Predators and Hunting))