Figure 1.
Palm distributions, humid forest and protected areas in Madagascar.
(a) Palm specimen collection localities in Madagascar and extent of humid forest vegetation [13]. (b) Species richness of palms in Madagascar [6] illustrating predicted number of palm species across the island at a resolution of 0.2° (ca. 22 km × 22 km). (c) Protected area network in Madagascar comprising the long-standing MNP network (46 parks and reserves [50]) and the newly established SAPM (145 reserves, including those of the MNP network [23]).
Table 1.
Fieldwork locations visited by the authors.
Figure 2.
Summary of the 2012 IUCN Red List Assessments of Madagascar Palms (see table 2).
IUCN Red List categories: Extinct in the Wild (EW), Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT), Least Concern (LC), Data Deficient (DD) [31].
Table 2.
Summary of results from the 2012 IUCN Red List Assessment of Madagascar Palms.
Table 3.
The conservation status of all 192 endemic Madagascar palm species.
Figure 3.
Comparison between the palm assessment of 1995 and 2012.
IUCN Red List categories: Extinct in the Wild (EW), Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Least Concern (LC), Data Deficient (DD) [31]. (a) Number of species assessed in each category (total assessments: 164 in 1995, 192 in 2012). All species assessed in each year are illustrated (see Table 3), except for those placed in categories that are not comparable (13 species assessed as “Rare” in 1995 [10] and 14 species assessed as NT in 2012 [44]; see methods). (b) Change in IUCN Red List status (see Table 3) where positive values indicate downlisting to lower extinction risk (e.g. CR to EN is a downlisting of 1 step) and negative values indicate uplisting to higher extinction risk (e.g. EN to CR is an uplisting of 1 step). Figure 3b includes 130 data sufficient species (i.e. excluding species rated as DD in either year) that were assessed in comparable categories in both 1995 [10] and 2012 [44].
Table 4.
Threatened and data deficient palm species that do not occur in the SAPM protected area network.
Figure 4.
IUCN conservation status of palm species summarised by occurrence in protected areas (SAPM network).
Of the 192 assessed species [44], 28 are not recorded from any protected area (coded as 0 in the figure), 37 species are recorded only from one protected area (coded as 1) and 124 species occur in two or more protected areas (coded as ≥2). Three data deficient species are not included as their distributions are unknown (Dypsis lucens, D. plumosa and D. thouarsiana).
Figure 5.
Major threats affecting endemic palm species in Madagascar.
Bar heights reflect number of species affected by each threat, as indicated in the 2012 IUCN conservation assessment [44]. Threat categories follow the Threats Classification Scheme version 3.2 [51], using the top two levels of the hierarchy. Abbreviations: Residential & commercial development (Residential): Housing & urban areas (H&UA), Tourism & recreation areas (T&RA); Agriculture & aquaculture (Agriculture): Shifting agriculture (SA), Small-holder farming (SF), Scale unknown/unrecorded (SU), Nomadic grazing (NG), Small-holder grazing, ranching or farming (SG); Energy production & mining (Energy): Mining & quarrying (M&Q), Renewable energy (RE); Biological resource use (Biological): Gathering terrestrial plants, Intentional use (species being assessed is the target) (G:IU), Gathering terrestrial plants, unintentional use (G:UU), Logging & wood harvesting for subsistence, Intentional use: subsistence/small scale (species being assessed is the target) (LW: IS), Logging & wood harvesting, Intentional use: large scale (species being assessed is the target) (LW: IL); Logging & wood harvesting, Unintentional effects: subsistence/small scale (species being assessed is not the target) (LW: US), Logging & wood harvesting, Unintentional effects: large scale (species being assessed is not the target) (LW: UL); Natural system modifications (NSM): Increase in fire frequency (IF); Climate change & severe weather (Climate): Storm & flooding (SF).
Figure 6.
Example of palm species under threat in Madagascar.
(a) Anthropogenic fires in grasslands, causing decline and destruction of palm populations, such as Dypsis decipiens (VU), Itremo. (b) Forest clearance for slash and burn cultivation by smallholder farmers, causing habitat loss for many species, such as Masoala kona (EN), Ifanadiana. (c) Gathering of young leaves of Ravenea lakatra (VU) for production of woven hats and basketry, Masoala. (d) Destructive harvest of palm heart threatens many species such as Dypsis saintelucei (EN), Sainte Luce. (e) Remnant populations of species such as Tahina spectabilis (CR), Analalava, near Mahajanga in vegetation remnants isolated within anthropogenic landscapes, at risk from fire, grazing and other human pressures. Image credits: (a) M Rakotoarinivo, (b) WJ Baker, (c, d & e) J Dransfield.