University of Antananarivo

About: University of Antananarivo is a education organization based out in Antananarivo, Madagascar. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Lemur. The organization has 1561 authors who have published 1703 publications receiving 30922 citations. The organization is also known as: Tananarive University & Antananarivo University.

Human migration to the forest frontier: implications for land use change and conservation management

Abstract: Human migration is often considered an important driver of land use change and a threat to protected area integrity, but the reasons for in-migration, the effectiveness of conservation restrictions at stemming migration, and the extent to which migrants disproportionately contribute to land use change has been poorly studied, especially at fine spatial scales. Using a case study in eastern Madagascar (603 household surveys, mapping agricultural land for a subset of 167 households, and 49 focus group discussions and key informant interviews), we explore the patterns and drivers of migration within the lifetime of those currently alive. We investigate how this influences forest conversion on the border of established protected areas and sites without a history of conservation restrictions. We show that in-migration is driven, especially in sites with high migration, by access to land. There is a much higher proportion of migrant households at sites without a long history of conservation restrictions than around long-established protected areas, and migrants tend to be more educated and live closer to the forest edge than non-migrants. Our evidence supports the engulfment model (an active forest frontier later becoming a protected area); there is no evidence that protected areas have attracted migrants. Where there is a perceived open forest frontier, people move to the forest but these migrants are no more likely than local people to clear land (i.e., migrants are not “exceptional resource degraders”). In some parts of the tropics, out-migration from rural areas is resulting in forest regrowth; such a forest transition is unlikely to occur in Madagascar for some time. Those seeking to manage protected areas at the forest frontier will therefore need to prevent further colonisation; supporting tenure security for existing residents is likely to be an important step.

Structure of local communities of endemic dung beetles in Madagascar

Abstract: The wet tropical forests in Madagascar have endemic dung beetles that have radiated for tens of millions of years using a limited range of resources produced by the species-poor mammalian fauna Beetles were trapped in two wet-forest localities over 4 years (6407 trap nights, 18,869 individuals) More limited data for six other local communities were used to check the generality of the results Local communities are relatively species poor (around 30 species) in comparison with wet-forest-inhabiting dung beetle communities elsewhere in the tropics (typically 50 or more species) The species belong to only two tribes, Canthonini and Helictopleurina (Oniticellini), which have evolved, exceptionally for dung beetle tribes, completely nocturnal versus diurnal diel activities, respectively Patterns in the elevational occurrence, body size and resource use suggest that interspecific competition restricts the numbers of locally coexisting species exploiting the limited range of resources that are available On the other hand, regional turnover in the species composition is exceptionally high due to a large number of species with small geographical ranges, yielding a very large total fauna of dung beetles in Madagascar (>250 species) Apart from exceptionally low local (alpha) diversity and high beta diversity, the Malagasy dung beetle communities are ecologically distinctive from comparable communities in other tropical regions in having high numerical dominance of the most abundant species, small average body size and low degree of resource specialization

Creating synergies between conservation agriculture and cattle production in crop–livestock farms: a study case in the lake alaotra region of madagascar

Abstract: Conservation agriculture (CA) has been promoted as a strategy to cope with deterioration in soil fertility, but its adoption on smallholder farms in tropical areas remains limited. In Madagascar, livestock production is facing shortages in forage especially during the dry season. The value of cover crops used in CA as livestock feed could be an incentive to make this form of agriculture more acceptable in rural areas. To do so, farmers must find a trade-off between the use of biomass from cover crops for animal production and its maintenance on the soil to meet CA's criteria. In this study, we evaluated the impact of biomass flows (cover crops and manure) between cropping and cattle production in crop-livestock farms in the Lake Alaotra region. Surveys among crop-livestock farmers were used to calculate feed concentrate and mineral fertilizer equivalents. Our results show that on average 42, 22 and 10% of biomass production (dry matter basis) of Brachiaria spp., Stylosanthes guianensis and Vicia villosa, respectively, are used for livestock feeding. The economic benefit in feed concentrate equivalent is between ?73 and ?723/year per farm. The use of manure contributes, just as CA, to improve soil fertility without using external fertilizing resources. The economic benefit in mineral fertilizer equivalent is between ?116 and ?2365/year per farm. The integration of CA and livestock production shows, beyond the agronomic advantages, an obvious economic benefit, which is essential to secure the Malagasy agricultural systems. Moreover, this economic benefit is another argument for the dissemination of CA practices in rural areas. (Resume d'auteur)