The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare?
Extinction has increased as human activities impact ecosystems, yet relatively few species have conservation assessments. Novel approaches are needed to highlight threatened species that are currently data-deficient. Many Madagascan plant species have extremely narrow ranges, but this may not have a...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8456134/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34547905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0957 |
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author | Helmstetter, Andrew J. Cable, Stuart Rakotonasolo, Franck Rabarijaona, Romer Rakotoarinivo, Mijoro Eiserhardt, Wolf L. Baker, William J. Papadopulos, Alexander S. T. |
author_facet | Helmstetter, Andrew J. Cable, Stuart Rakotonasolo, Franck Rabarijaona, Romer Rakotoarinivo, Mijoro Eiserhardt, Wolf L. Baker, William J. Papadopulos, Alexander S. T. |
author_sort | Helmstetter, Andrew J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Extinction has increased as human activities impact ecosystems, yet relatively few species have conservation assessments. Novel approaches are needed to highlight threatened species that are currently data-deficient. Many Madagascan plant species have extremely narrow ranges, but this may not have always been the case—it is unclear how the island's diverse flora evolved. To assess this, we generated restriction-site associated DNA sequence data for 10 Madagascan plant species, estimated effective population size (N(e)) for each species and compared this to census (N(c)) sizes. In each case, N(e) was an order of magnitude larger than N(c)—signifying rapid, recent population decline. We then estimated species' demographic history, tracking changes in N(e) over time. We show that it is possible to predict extinction risk, particularly in the most threatened species. Furthermore, simulations showed that our approach has the power to detect population decline during the Anthropocene. Our analyses reveal that Madagascar's micro-endemics were not always rare, having experienced a rapid decline in their recent history. This casts further uncertainty over the processes that generated Madagascar's exceptional biodiversity. Our approach targets data-deficient species in need of conservation assessment, particularly in regions where human modification of the environment has been rapid. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8456134 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-84561342021-10-19 The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? Helmstetter, Andrew J. Cable, Stuart Rakotonasolo, Franck Rabarijaona, Romer Rakotoarinivo, Mijoro Eiserhardt, Wolf L. Baker, William J. Papadopulos, Alexander S. T. Proc Biol Sci Evolution Extinction has increased as human activities impact ecosystems, yet relatively few species have conservation assessments. Novel approaches are needed to highlight threatened species that are currently data-deficient. Many Madagascan plant species have extremely narrow ranges, but this may not have always been the case—it is unclear how the island's diverse flora evolved. To assess this, we generated restriction-site associated DNA sequence data for 10 Madagascan plant species, estimated effective population size (N(e)) for each species and compared this to census (N(c)) sizes. In each case, N(e) was an order of magnitude larger than N(c)—signifying rapid, recent population decline. We then estimated species' demographic history, tracking changes in N(e) over time. We show that it is possible to predict extinction risk, particularly in the most threatened species. Furthermore, simulations showed that our approach has the power to detect population decline during the Anthropocene. Our analyses reveal that Madagascar's micro-endemics were not always rare, having experienced a rapid decline in their recent history. This casts further uncertainty over the processes that generated Madagascar's exceptional biodiversity. Our approach targets data-deficient species in need of conservation assessment, particularly in regions where human modification of the environment has been rapid. The Royal Society 2021-09-29 2021-09-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8456134/ /pubmed/34547905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0957 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Evolution Helmstetter, Andrew J. Cable, Stuart Rakotonasolo, Franck Rabarijaona, Romer Rakotoarinivo, Mijoro Eiserhardt, Wolf L. Baker, William J. Papadopulos, Alexander S. T. The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
title | The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
title_full | The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
title_fullStr | The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
title_full_unstemmed | The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
title_short | The demographic history of Madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
title_sort | demographic history of madagascan micro-endemics: have rare species always been rare? |
topic | Evolution |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8456134/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34547905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.0957 |
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