Aim Grasslands and savannas, which make up > 75% of Madagascar's land area, have long been viewed as anthropogenically derived after people settled on the island c. 2 ka. We investigated this hypothesis and an alternative -that the grasslands are an insular example of the post-Miocene spread of C 4 grassy biomes world-wide.Location Madagascar, southern Africa, East Africa.Methods We compared the number of C 4 grass genera in Madagascar with that in southern and south-central African floras. If the grasslands are recent we would expect to find fewer species and genera in Madagascar relative to Africa and for these species and genera to have very wide distribution ranges in Madagascar. Secondly, we searched Madagascan floras for the presence of endemic plant species or genera restricted to grasslands. We also searched for evidence of a grassland specialist fauna with species endemic to Madagascar. Plant and animal species endemic to C 4 grassy biomes would not be expected if these are of recent origin.

A 16-year study of wild, unprovisioned sifaka Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi at Beza Mahafaly in southwest Madagascar provides estimates of age-speci®c fertility, mortality, and dispersal in a population of 426 marked animals, and longitudinal records of individual life histories. Sifaka females give birth for the ®rst time later and live longer, for their size, than mammals in other orders; they also give birth later and continue reproducing longer, for their size, than other primates. Theory postulates that these features, commonly referred to as bet-hedging, evolve in unpredictable environments in association with widely varying infant survival and a trade-off between reproductive effort and adult survival. The climate of south-west Madagascar is highly unpredictable compared to almost all other regions in the tropics with similar average rainfall, and we argue that sifaka females are bet-hedgers par excellence. Male sifaka, in contrast, become reproductively active at an earlier age than females, and are less likely to have long lives than females. The atypical direction of this asymmetry between males and females re¯ects a`slowing down' of female life histories rather than a`speeding up' of male life histories. Two other unusual features of sifaka biology and behaviour may be linked to the unpredictability of Madagascar's climate: intense local competition between females, and a sex ratio at birth strongly biased in favour of males in most years. In drought years, reproductive females must cope with suddenly intensi®ed resource constraints. This, in turn, may strongly limit the number of`breeding slots' available over the long-term for females.

The dynamics of a remnant population of the palm Neodypsis decaryi were characterized using a linear, stage‐structured demographic model. This palm is a threatened keystone species restricted to a narrow ecological zone in southeastern Madagascar. The population showed high mortality rates in the early stages of the life cycle, followed by a period of lower adult mortality. Demographic results indicated that the population was either stable or increasing inside the reserve (λm close to 1.0). Sensitivity and elasticity analyses indicated that adult stage classes were the most sensitive to producing changes in population growth rates. Continued biological monitoring is appropriate for the long‐term conservation management of this palm inside the reserve. Outside the protected area the population appears to be declining rapidly, mainly because of anthropogenic effects (especially fire and grazing). If the conservation of Neodypsis decaryi is to be successful in the long term, then conservation methods must be carried out in cooperation with local villagers, and the species should be managed as a renewable resource in situ and ex situ. In situ conservation should include cultivation of this species throughout its natural range and protection of the existing viable natural populations. Alternative conservation management practices, both ecologically and economically sustainable, may be useful to alleviate the human pressures on this renewable resource. If leaves of N. decaryi are to be harvested by local people, we recommend restricting annual harvesting to about 25% of leaves per tree per year. Based on sensitivity analysis, seed collection should be kept well below 95% of the yearly crop if harvesting is not to have a significant impact on population growth rates.

In this study, we use deterministic and stochastic models to analyze the demography of Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi verreauxi) in a fluctuating rainfall environment. The model is based on 16 years of data from Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve, southwest Madagascar. The parameters in the stage-classified life cycle were estimated using mark-recapture methods. Statistical models were evaluated using information-theoretic techniques and multi-model inference. The highest ranking model is time-invariant, but the averaged model includes rainfall-dependence of survival and breeding. We used a time-series model of rainfall to construct a stochastic demographic model. The time-invariant model and the stochastic model give a population growth rate of about 0.98. Bootstrap confidence intervals on the growth rates, both deterministic and stochastic, include 1. Growth rates are most elastic to changes in adult survival. Many demographic statistics show a nonlinear response to annual rainfall but are depressed when annual rainfall is low, or the variance in annual rainfall is high. Perturbation analyses from both the time-invariant and stochastic models indicate that recruitment and survival of older females are key determinants of population growth rate.