Daraina sportive lemur (Lepilemur milanoii) density and population size estimates in most of its distribution range: the Loky-Manambato region.

The population of the Daraina sportive lemur (Lepilemur milanoii) is believed to be mostly confined to the Loky-Manambato region (Louis et al., 2006). Very little is known about L. milanoii and it is classified as “Data Deficient” by the IUCN (IUCN, 2013; Schwitzer et al., 2013). Despite the management of the area by the NGO Fanamby since 2005, no study had been conducted to determine the presence and the abundance of L. milanoii in the main forest fragments of the region. During the 2011 dry season we surveyed the ten main forest fragments of the Loky-Manambato region and estimated L. milanoii densities and population sizes using line transect distance sampling (Buckland, 2001) and the DISTANCE software (Thomas et al., 2010). The results suggest that sportive lemur densities are reasonably high in the region, but with important discrepancies between forest fragments, with densities ranging from 49.8 ind./km² in Antsaharaingy to 590.5 ind./km² in Ampondrabe. For the region Loky-Manambato we were able to estimate a population size of 52,000 individuals. This is the first estimate for the total population size and we argue that similar studies should be repeated to monitor environmental changes and anthropogenic pressures (hunting, deforestation, mining, etc.).