Is temporal plasticity in lemurs a strategy for dealing with unpredictable or predictable, seasonal environments?

Abstract

Madagascar is unique among tropical regions, in that its diverse habitats pose numerous challenges to the animals inhabiting them, with different degrees of environmental unpredictability, seasonality, frequent droughts, and cyclones. We review the temporal strategies that two groups of lemurs, the lemurids and the cheirolgaleids, have evolved to deal with these factors and that are rare and unique, respectively, among primates. These strategies, cathemerality (day/night activity) and torpor/hibernation, may be the key to their broad distribution within Madagascar and their success in all habitat types on the island, as these lemurs can respond rapidly to abiotic and biotic variation and avoid the time and seasonal constraints placed on other primates.