Historical demography of a wild lemur population (<i>Propithecus verreauxi</i>) in southwest Madagascar

Lawler, Richard R.

doi:10.1007/s10144-010-0206-9

Cited by 33 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 70 publications

(93 reference statements)

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“…Whether or not the initial population decline was caused by the onset of the LGM, and whether or not there was a population expansion in the Early Holocene, it is clear that environmental conditions in the Mid‐Late Holocene have had a dramatic effect on drill population dynamics and modern drill genetic diversity. Although some studies identified recent (i.e., the past few hundred years) habitat changes by humans as the main source of past population size change and current genetic variation in tropical mammals (Goossens et al 2006; Olivieri et al 2008; Craul et al 2009; Thalmann et al 2011), other studies are consistent with our conclusion that Mid‐Late Holocene events were particularly influential (Heller et al 2008; Okello et al 2008; Lawler 2011). This time period saw an increase in aridity and the opening up of forests across Africa.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Genetic signatures of a demographic collapse in a large‐bodied forest dwelling primate (Mandrillus leucophaeus)

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Astaras

Hearn

et al. 2012

Ecology and Evolution

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It is difficult to predict how current climate change will affect wildlife species adapted to a tropical rainforest environment. Understanding how population dynamics fluctuated in such species throughout periods of past climatic change can provide insight into this issue. The drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) is a large-bodied rainforest adapted mammal found in West Central Africa. In the middle of this endangered monkey's geographic range is Lake Barombi Mbo, which has a well-documented palynological record of environmental change that dates to the Late Pleistocene. We used a Bayesian coalescent-based framework to analyze 2,076 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA across wild drill populations to infer past changes in female effective population size since the Late Pleistocene. Our results suggest that the drill underwent a nearly 15-fold demographic collapse in female effective population size that was most prominent during the Mid Holocene (approximately 3-5 Ka). This time period coincides with a period of increased dryness and seasonality across Africa and a dramatic reduction in forest coverage at Lake Barombi Mbo. We believe that these changes in climate and forest coverage were the driving forces behind the drill population decline. Furthermore, the warm temperatures and increased aridity of the Mid Holocene are potentially analogous to current and future conditions faced by many tropical rainforest communities. In order to prevent future declines in population size in rainforest-adapted species such as the drill, large tracts of forest should be protected to both preserve habitat and prevent forest loss through aridification.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Genetic signatures of a demographic collapse in a large‐bodied forest dwelling primate (Mandrillus leucophaeus)

Ting

Astaras

Hearn

et al. 2012

Ecology and Evolution

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“…(44)] from the northwest of Madagascar, where habitat loss has been massive in the past century (32). Similarly Lawler (80) concluded that P. verreauxi also suffered from a bottleneck less than 2,000 y ago in the southwest of Madagascar, again, a region where human impact and deforestation are more serious than in Daraina (14). Similar results have also been suggested for other primates [orangutans (81) and howler monkeys (82)].…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 64%

Genetic data suggest a natural prehuman origin of open habitats in northern Madagascar and question the deforestation narrative in this region

Quéméré

Amelot

Pierson

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The impact of climate change and anthropogenic deforestation on biodiversity is of growing concern worldwide. Disentangling how past anthropogenic and natural factors contributed to current biome distribution is thus a crucial issue to understand their complex interactions on wider time scales and to improve predictions and conservation strategies. This is particularly important in biodiversity hotspots, such as Madagascar, dominated by large open habitats whose origins are increasingly debated. Although a dominant narrative argues that Madagascar was originally entirely covered by woodlands, which were destroyed by humans, a number of recent studies have suggested that past climatic fluctuations played a major role in shaping current biome distributions well before humans arrived. Here, we address the question of the origin of open habitats in the Daraina region in northern Madagascar, using a multiproxy approach combining population genetics modeling and remote-sensing analyses. We show that (i) contrary to most regions of Madagascar, the forest cover in Daraina remained remarkably stable over the past 60 y, and (ii) the golden-crowned sifaka (Propithecus tattersalli), a forest-dwelling lemur, underwent a strong population contraction before the arrival of the first humans, hence excluding an anthropogenic cause. Prehuman Holocene droughts may have led to a significant increase of grasslands and a reduction in the species' habitat. This contradicts the prevailing narrative that land cover changes are necessarily anthropogenic in Madagascar but does not preclude the later role played by humans in other regions in which recent lemur bottlenecks have been observed. habitat loss | primate | population bottleneck | coalescent

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“…The LTRE analysis performed on the Cayo Santiago population shows that most of the variation in population growth rate over the past 28 years is due to variation in life cycle transitions of young adult and adult females. Therefore, in order to understand the temporal dynamics of λ, it is necessary to identify processes that influence these two life cycle stages [Lawler, 2011b]. Young adults (three-yr-olds) in Cayo Santiago represent a stage of potential sexual maturation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A life table response experiment (LTRE) of random design [Caswell 2000; Lawler, 2011b] was performed to quantify the population-level effect of variation in vital rates across different levels of adult density. The LTRE is a retrospective analysis that determines how variation in life-cycle transitions, during a sequence of years, contributed to the observed variation in the population growth rate [Caswell 2000; 2001].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data prior to 1973 were not used for estimating model parameters due to record ambiguities in data from culled versus dead individuals [Sade et al, 1985]. Only female individuals were included in the demographic model, therefore, the analysis assumes that female life history schedules determine population dynamics given that female reproductive success is not limited by adult males [Caughley, 1977;Lawler, 2011b;Rawlins & Kessler, 1986a]. We recorded: (1) the total number of females alive in the population each year, (2) the age of sexual maturity, (3) the total number of females that gave birth to females at specific ages, and (4) the age at death or age when culled (removal from Cayo Santiago as part of the management strategy).…”

Section: Demographic Data Collection and Parameterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Demographic variability and density‐dependent dynamics of a free‐ranging rhesus macaque population

Hernández‐Pacheco

Rawlins

Kessler

et al. 2013

American J Primatol

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Density-dependence is hypothesized as the major mechanism of population regulation. However, the lack of long-term demographic data has hampered the use of density-dependent models in nonhuman primates. In this study, we make use of the long-term demographic data from Cayo Santiago’s rhesus macaques to parameterize and analyze both a density-independent and a density-dependent population matrix model, and compare their projections with the observed population changes. We also employ a retrospective analysis to determine how variance in vital rates, and covariance among them, contributed to the observed variation in long-term fitness across different levels of population density. The population exhibited negative density-dependence in fertility and the model incorporating this relationship accounted for 98% of the observed population dynamics. Variation in survival and fertility of sexually active individuals contributed the most to the variation in long-term fitness, while vital rates displaying high temporal variability exhibited lower sensitivities. Our findings are novel in describing density-dependent dynamics in a provisioned primate population, and in suggesting that selection is acting to lower the variance in the population growth rate by minimizing the variation in adult survival at high density. Because density-dependent mechanisms may become stronger in wild primate populations due to increasing habitat loss and food scarcity, our study demonstrates it is important to incorporate variation in population size, as well as demographic variability into population viability analyses for a better understanding of the mechanisms regulating the growth of primate populations.

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Historical demography of a wild lemur population (Propithecus verreauxi) in southwest Madagascar

Cited by 33 publications

References 70 publications

Genetic signatures of a demographic collapse in a large‐bodied forest dwelling primate (Mandrillus leucophaeus)

Genetic signatures of a demographic collapse in a large‐bodied forest dwelling primate (Mandrillus leucophaeus)

Genetic data suggest a natural prehuman origin of open habitats in northern Madagascar and question the deforestation narrative in this region

Demographic variability and density‐dependent dynamics of a free‐ranging rhesus macaque population

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