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The unlikely ‘antiquity of Madagascar's grasslands’: Disproportionately forest‐limited endemic fauna support anthropogenic transformation from woodland
Author(s) -
Joseph Grant S.,
Seymour Colleen L.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of biogeography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1365-2699
pISSN - 0305-0270
DOI - 10.1111/jbi.14132
Subject(s) - grassland , ecology , fauna , woodland , geography , biome , endemism , subfossil , biogeography , mainland , natural (archaeology) , biology , ecosystem , archaeology , holocene
Abstract Papers arguing for Malagasy central highlands (MCH) as natural grassland rely disproportionally on a single reference (Bond et al. 2008, The antiquity of Madagascar's grasslands and the rise of C4 grassy biomes. Journal of Biogeography , 35 , 1743–1758). The paper argues that (1) evolution of endemic grassland specialist fauna, (2) paleoecological findings and (3) existence of subfossil C 4 ‐grazers provide evidence that when humans entered the MCH around 2000 years before present (BP), it was a natural, ancient grassland. Respectfully, we find discrepancies between that study and its sources: (1) proportions of endemic grassland‐limited species are 17‐fold greater than original data (which show 87% of species are forest‐limited and 2% [not 32%] are grassland‐limited); (2) paleodata relevant to human‐influenced timeframes are omitted; and (3) the hippo specimen used to invoke existence of ancient C 4 ‐grazers was the common hippo from mainland Africa, circa 1950. We conclude that the paper's findings are unsupported, and MCH grasslands are likely anthropogenic.