Madagascar's Central Highlands are largely composed of grasslands, interspersed with patches of forest. The historical perspective was that Madagascar's grasslands had anthropogenic origins, but emerging evidence suggests that grasslands were a component of the pre-human Central Highlands vegetation. Consequently, there is now vigorous debate regarding the extent to which these grasslands have expanded due to anthropogenic pressures. Here, we shed light on the temporal dynamics of Madagascar's vegetative composition by conducting a population genomic investigation of Goodman's mouse lemur (Microcebus lehilahytsara; Cheirogaleidae). These small-bodied primates occur both in Madagascar's eastern rainforests and in the Central Highlands, making them a valuable indicator species. Population divergences among forest-dwelling mammals will reflect changes to their habitat, including fragmentation, whereas patterns of post-divergence gene flow can reveal formerly wooded migration corridors. To explore these patterns, we used RADseq data to infer population genetic structure, demographic models of post-divergence gene flow, and population size change through time. The results offer evidence that open habitats are an ancient component of the Central Highlands, and that wide-spread forest fragmentation occurred naturally during a period of decreased precipitation near the Last Glacial Maximum. Models of gene flow suggest that migration across the Central Highlands has been possible from the Pleistocene through the recent Holocene via riparian corridors. Though our findings support the hypothesis that Central Highland grasslands predate human arrival, we also find evidence for human-mediated population declines. This highlights the extent to which species imminently threatened by human-mediated deforestation may already be vulnerable from paleoclimatic conditions.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 August 2022.
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#7,436,557
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#3,080
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#116,552
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Outputs of similar age from Molecular Ecology
#49
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Altmetric has tracked 28,913,387 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,304 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.1. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 57% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 115 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 57% of its contemporaries.
