title: Deforestation and apparent extinctions of endemic forest beetles in Madagascar.
abstract: Madagascar has lost about half of its forest cover since 1953 with much regional variation, for instance most of the coastal lowland forests have been cleared. We sampled the endemic forest-dwelling Helictopleurini dung beetles across Madagascar during 2002-2006. Our samples include 29 of the 51 previously known species for which locality information is available. The most significant factor explaining apparent extinctions (species not collected by us) is forest loss within the historical range of the focal species, suggesting that deforestation has already caused the extinction, or effective extinction, of a large number of insect species with small geographical ranges, typical for many endemic taxa in Madagascar. Currently, roughly 10% of the original forest cover remains. Species-area considerations suggest that this will allow roughly half of the species to persist. Our results are consistent with this prediction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, PO Box 65, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. ilkka.hanski@helsinki.fi
authors.forename: Ilkka
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hanski
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Koivulehto
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cameron
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rahagalala
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001517:Coleoptera / Q000502:physiology*; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000639:trends*; D003710:Demography; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D008270:Madagascar; D013045:Species Specificity; D013048:Specimen Handling / Q000706:statistics & numerical data