Destination: Rwanda
Expedition: Native Rwandan Sylvain Nyawandi, a PhD candidate at George Washington University, conveys the urgency to understand the behavioral and reproductive effects of forest fragmentation on female chimpanzees in his country. Using two different forest fragments one of primary forest, the other secondary forest Sylvain believes this approach will offer a powerful comparison of different kinds of forest fragments on food availability, and how this influences chimp reproduction. Sylvain aims to integrate the ecological, behavioral, genetic and reproductive data to assess the effect of habitat fragmentation on female chimps in Rwanda, in an effort to help protect this charismatic species.