This project will provide a portion of the core support for the Duke Lemur Center (DLC). The DLC houses the largest and most diverse collection of endangered primates in the world. The Center focuses on lemurs from Madagascar, all of which are critically endangered. Due to the close evolutionary proximity of lemurs and humans, biological study of lemurs can inform our understanding of human biology. The DLC serves as a model for noninvasive research on primates. Researchers at the DLC use sophisticated technologies that allow for data collection without harm to the animals in diverse biological disciplines, ranging from genomics, virology, cognition, biomechanics, physiology, behavior, and ecology. The Duke Lemur Center is the only place in the world where lemurs are readily available for study and where biological samples, medical records, and other data, collected today and over its 40-year history, allow for detailed investigations of primate comparative biology.
Outreach and education are critical aspects of the DLC mission. The DLC serves multiple educational communities, including the general public, K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate. In the past five years, the Center has hosted an average of more than 13,000 visitors per year, with K-12 comprising more than 4,000 of these visitors in a given year and college student tours comprising up to 2,400 visitors. With recent enhancements to our web site (http://lemur.duke.edu/), the DLC strives to become the world?s leader in long-distance learning relating to endangered primate biology and conservation.
