ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2016
Madagascar's grasses and grasslands: anthropogenic or natural?
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Origins Under the Blowtorch: Frequent Fire Shifts the Balance Between Sunda-Origin and Sahul-Origin Plant Species in a Tropical Savanna.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Aerobiology in Africa: a continent-wide review of pollen, fungal spores, and allergy risk.Aerobiologia · 2026Review
- How ancient forest fragmentation and riparian connectivity generate high levels of genetic diversity in a microendemic Malagasy tree.Molecular ecology · 2023Article
- Remaining forests on the Central Highlands of Madagascar-Endemic and endangered aquatic beetle fauna uncovered.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Are Madagascar's obligate grazing-lawns ancient and evolved with endemic herbivores, or recently selected by introduced cattle?Biology letters · 2022Article
- Dietary isotopes of Madagascar's extinct megafauna reveal holocene browsing and grazing guilds.Biology letters · 2022Article
- Living in tiny fragments: a glimpse at the ecology of Goodman's mouse lemurs (Microcebus lehilahytsara) in the relic forest of Ankafobe, Central Highlands, Madagascar.Primates; journal of primatology · 2021Article
- Seeing the forest for the trees-and the grasses: revisiting the evidence for grazer-maintained grasslands in Madagascar's Central Highlands.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Madagascan highlands: originally woodland and forest containing endemic grasses, not grazing-adapted grassland.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Fire and grazing determined grasslands of central Madagascar represent ancient assemblages.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Dialects of Madagascar.PloS one · 2020Article
- Early Holocene human presence in Madagascar evidenced by exploitation of avian megafauna.Science advances · 2018Article
- The Cuito catchment of the Okavango system: a vascular plant checklist for the Angolan headwaters.PhytoKeys · 2018Article
- Biological activity of Entada phaseoloides and Entada rheedei.Journal of natural medicines · 2018Review
- A 250 plastome phylogeny of the grass family (Poaceae): topological support under different data partitions.PeerJ · 2018Article
- Molecular phylogeny of Panicum s. str. (Poaceae, Panicoideae, Paniceae) and insights into its biogeography and evolution.PloS one · 2018Article
- Museomics resolve the systematics of an endangered grass lineage endemic to north-western Madagascar.Annals of botany · 2017Article
- Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- The underestimated biodiversity of tropical grassy biomes.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Madagascar's ephemeral palaeo-grazer guild: who ate the ancient C4 grasses?Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
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15 authors.
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Abstract
Grasses, by their high productivity even under very low pCO2, their ability to survive repeated burning and to tolerate long dry seasons, have transformed the terrestrial biomes in the Neogene and Quaternary. The expansion of grasslands at the cost of biodiverse forest biomes in Madagascar is often postulated as a consequence of the Holocene settlement of the island by humans. However, we show that the Malagasy grass flora has many indications of being ancient with a long local evolutionary history, much predating the Holocene arrival of humans. First, the level of endemism in the Madagascar grass flora is well above the global average for large islands. Second, a survey of many of the more diverse areas indicates that there is a very high spatial and ecological turnover in the grass flora, indicating a high degree of niche specialization. We also find some evidence that there are both recently disturbed and natural stable grasslands: phylogenetic community assembly indicates that recently severely disturbed grasslands are phylogenetically clustered, whereas more undisturbed grasslands tend to be phylogenetically more evenly distributed. From this evidence, it is likely that grass communities existed in Madagascar long before human arrival and so were determined by climate, natural grazing and other natural factors. Humans introduced zebu cattle farming and increased fire frequency, and may have triggered an expansion of the grasslands. Grasses probably played the same role in the modification of the Malagasy environments as elsewhere in the tropics.
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