Rediscovery of the Madagascar Pochard Aythya innotata in northern Madagascar

Pneumonic Plague Outbreak, Northern Madagascar, 2011

Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, is endemic to Madagascar, particularly to the central highlands. Although plague has not been previously reported in northern Madagascar, an outbreak of pneumonic plague occurred in this remote area in 2011. Over a 27-day period, 17 suspected, 2 presumptive, and 3 confirmed human cases were identified, and all 15 untreated 20 patients died. Molecu...

Effects of anthropogenic activities on lizard communities in northern Madagascar

Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot threatened by habitat loss, which is detrimental to the future survival of forest-dwelling herpetofauna. For conservation purposes, it is essential to determine how species respond to different types of anthropogenic habitat alteration. We conducted standardized field surveys (a variation of visual encounter survey) to assess species richness, abundance and ...

Madagascar Decentralization

Evolution in the hypervariable environment of Madagascar.

We show that the diverse ecoregions of Madagascar share one distinctive climatic feature: unpredictable intra- or interannual precipitation compared with other regions with comparable rainfall. Climatic unpredictability is associated with unpredictable patterns of fruiting and flowering. It is argued that these features have shaped the evolution of distinctive characteristics in the mammalian f...

Madagascar: a Megadiversity Country

In this short article on lemurs I give a concise introduction for non-specialists to these conspicuous and unique animals on the island of Madagascar. INTRODUCTION Madagascar has long been known for its exquisite wildlife. It has been identified as a Megadiversity country and “Hottest Hotspot” for biodiversity conservation (Meyers et al. 2000 Mittermeier et al. 2005) due to the combination of e...