Landscape Ecology of Deforestation Processes and Lemur Biogeography in Madagascar

Although it is now axiomatic that global biodiversity is threatened and that species are going extinct at an accelerating rate (Ceballos et al. 2015), remarkably little is known about the distribution dynamics of many threatened taxa (Brook et al. 2006; Fahrig 2003; Grenouillet & Comte 2014; Guisan et al. 2013). This conservation crisis has spurred the development of new fields of applied research, such as conservation biogeography. Conservation biogeography applies novel conceptual approaches to classic biogeographic models to determine how environmental and anthropogenic changes influence biodiversity (Whittaker et al. 2005). At its core, conservation biogeography focuses on the theory and statistical analyses of spatial dynamics of taxa within a changing environment (Franklin 2010). These dynamic processes include critical questions on how plants and animals respond to changes in habitat availability and use, due to the effects of global warming, forest loss and fragmentation, and anthropogenic pressures (Malcolm et al. 2006; Riitters et al. 2000; Woodroffe & Ginsberg 1998).