ENHS Nature Trails January 2002 Article 1

This month's speaker: Dr. Joanna Lambert

Dr. Joanna Lambert's extensive research and experience in her areas of interest, "tropical ecology with an emphasis on primate-plant interactions, including seed dispersal, primate feeding behavior and biology, mammalian digestive strategies, and evolution of African monkeys and apes," set the scene for a very informative talk this Friday. Joanna's enthusiasm for her teaching and depth of her research have earned her "Outstanding Teaching" awards and membership in honor societies associated with her field. We're in for a great talk! Here's more from Joanna.

WERE YOU INTERESTED IN NATURE AS A CHILD?
I cannot remember a time when the natural world did not fascinate me. There is something about the sanctity of quiet, natural and green places that has drawn me since I was a very young child. I remember secreting away under bushes in the backyard of the house that I grew up in England when I was six years old or so. The desire to retreat to natural places remains with me. I find myself revitalized by my trips to my research site in Africa.

LANDMARK EXPERIENCES?
Honestly, all of my most memorable life experiences involve interactions with animals. Being chased by elephants, stalked by a leopard, having to climb a tree to avoid a giant forest hog, coming face to face with a herd of white-lipped peccaries, watching a duckbill platypus forage, swimming with bottle-nosed dolphins and watching humpbacked whales breech are experiences that have shaped who I am. Perhaps one of my most fantastic moments comes from an afternoon in 1993. I was monitoring fruit removal from a magnificent Pseudospondias tree in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Since the spreading crown was utterly enormous and the tree reached heights of well over 40 meters, the best way to watch it for ten hours was to lie down and to hold my binoculars to my face. For one amazing hour on that afternoon while lying on the forest floor, I observed a veritable menagerie of fantastic and vividly colored paleotropical frugivores. Foraging in the same tree at the same time were chimpanzees, redtail monkeys, blue monkeys, grey-cheeked mangabey, African gray parrots, great blue turacos and several glossy starling species--all gorging themselves on the ripe purple fruit. It was an utterly amazing cacophony of sight and sound; I have not seen anything like it before or since.

ANY NATURE HOBBIES?
I am an avid bird watcher. I also like very much to identify animals from their spoor. This is great fun in Africa during the rainy season when the tracks of mammals, reptiles, and birds are plentiful in the mud.

MEMORABLE TRAVELS?
I have the good fortune of traveling extensively for my profession, particularly to the tropics, and have spent time on all continents except for Antarctica. Perhaps my most important travel experience was my first trip to Africa, which took place during my first year as a graduate student in 1991. I had dreamt of visiting Africa since reading a book about leopards whilst a child of eight years. Visiting this vibrant, diverse and utterly remarkable continent not only met the expectations that I had built over the years, but exceeded them hugely. The smells, sounds, and visions of that trip will stay with me forever.

WHO INFLUENCED YOU TO PURSUE STUDIES IN BIOLOGY?
One of the most influential individuals in my professional career is Carol Augspurger. I took my first tropical ecology course with Carol over ten years ago; the subject matter of this course in combination with Carol's passion for the tropics galvanized me. It was this course and subsequent interactions with Carol both as a mentor and friend that allowed me to identify my interests in plant-animal interactions and tropical biology.

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR TRAINING?
I received my Bachelors of Science and Masters degrees in Biology and Anthropology from Northern Illinois University. I earned my PhD in Biological Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Zoology at the University of Florida.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO OUR TOWN?
In 1999 I was offered the position of Assistant Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Oregon.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TELL US FRIDAY NIGHT?
Most of my research takes place in a medium-altitude rainforest in western Uganda known as Kibale. Among this forest's many remarkable features is that it is home to the world's greatest density of primates as well as one of the world's highest diversity of primate species. In Kibale I have studied chimpanzees, blue monkeys, red colobus monkeys, redtail monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, and grey-cheeked mangabeys. In my lecture I will evaluate the ecological roles that these primates play in this forest with a focus on primate-plant interactions. In the decade that I have worked at this site, I have found that the resident primates consume a great diversity and density of fruit and I have worked towards understanding the impact of this frugivory on forest regeneration. Thus, my talk will largely be a discussion of fruit feeding and seed dispersal by monkeys and apes. I will discuss my work on frugivory and seed fate as well as on fruit dietary overlap and niche evolution in primates. As most primate species are either endangered or threatened with endangerment, I will conclude by contextualizing my work into a broader framework of conservation.

Currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, Dr. Lambert has published numerous technical and popular scientific articles in a diverse group of publications as well as CD-ROMs for Classroom Connect, Inc. One of her articles currently under review by the Journal of Human Evolution is titled: "Body Size and Digestive Retention Times in Chimpanzees and Forest Guenons: Implications for Understanding Hominoid and Cercopithecine Feeding." ENHS is fortunate that Joanna Lambert has found time in her demanding schedule to share some of her fascinating research with us on Friday.

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