The evolution of ecological idiosyncrasies in Madagascar has often been attributed to selective pressures stemming from extreme unpredictability in climate and resource availability compared to other tropical areas. With the exception of rainfall, few studies have investigated these assumptions. To assess the hypothesis that Madagascar’s paucity of frugivores is due to unreliability in fruiting resources, we use statistical modeling to analyze phenology datasets and their environmental correlates from two tropical wet forests, the Réserve Naturelle Intégrale Betampona in Madagascar, and Kibale National Park in Uganda. At each site we found that temperature is a good environmental predictor of fruit availability. We found no evidence of a significant difference in the predictability of fruit availability between the two sites, although the shorter duration of phenological monitoring at Betampona (two years, versus 15 years at Kibale) limits our ability to infer long-term patterns. Comparisons of long-term temperature data from each site (15 years from Kibale and 14 from Betampona) indicate that temperature is more predictable at Betampona than at Kibale. However, there does appear to be a difference between the two sites in the total fruit availability at any given time, with fruit being generally less abundant at Betampona. Our results appear contrary to the prevailing hypothesis of a selective force imposed by unpredictable resource availability or temperature, and we suggest other possible explanations for Madagascar’s unique biota.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America;Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America;Department of Anthropology, Hunter College of the City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America;Departments of Anthropology & Biology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America;The New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP), New York, New York, United States of America;Department of Anthropology and McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada;Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America;New York Botanical Garden, Institute of Systematic Botany, Bronx, New York, United States of America;Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America;Department of Anthropology and McGill School of Environment, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada;Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America
Recommended Citation:
Sarah Federman,Miranda Sinnott-Armstrong,Andrea L. Baden,et al. The Paucity of Frugivores in Madagascar May Not Be Due to Unpredictable Temperatures or Fruit Resources[J]. PLOS ONE,2017-01-01,12(1)