鼎湖山20公顷森林样地单个物种对群落的构建

大型固定监测森林样地已成为研究森林群落组织机制的一个重要平台。群落里个体之间的相互作用对群落的构建有相当重要的作用。以往的研究主要针对于物种之间的相互作用,而用群落里单个物种与其它所有个体之间相互关系来解释群落构建的研究还很少。采用单个物种-面积关系（ISAR）这一指标对鼎湖山20 hm2样地和BCI 50 hm2样地数据分析,来研究不同样地单个物种是如何对森林群落进行构建的。结果显示,与BCI样地和Sinharaja样地不同,鼎湖山样地大树对周围其它个体的作用几乎是中性的;而对于小树（胸径小于10 cm）来说,鼎湖山样地和BCI样地一样,随着尺度的增加＂吸引型＂物种减少,而＂中性＂物种增加。说明了不同的群落在不同的发育阶段,单个物种对群落结构的构建有重要的作用不同,将来的研究应该结合群落其它方面的因素来分析群落内个体之间相互作用,例如从时间尺度的谱系和空间因素去分析。     

Gradient forests: calculating importance gradients on physical predictors

In ecological analyses of species and community distributions there is interest in the nature of their responses to environmental gradients and in identifying the most important environmental variables, which may be used for predicting patterns of biodiversity. Methods such as random forests already exist to assess predictor importance for individual species and to indicate where along gradients abundance changes. However, there is a need to extend these methods to whole assemblages, to establish where along the range of these gradients the important compositional changes occur, and to identify any important thresholds or change points. We develop such a method, called "gradient forest," which is an extension of the random forest approach. By synthesizing the cross-validated R2 and accuracy importance measures from univariate random forest analyses across multiple species, sampling devices, and surveys, gradient forest obtains a monotonic function of each predictor that represents the compositional turnover along the gradient of the predictor. When applied to a synthetic data set, the method correctly identified the important predictors and delineated where the compositional change points occurred along these gradients. Application of gradient forest to a real data set from part of the Great Barrier Reef identified mud fraction of the sediment as the most important predictor, with highest compositional turnover occurring at mud fraction values around 25%, and provided similar information for other predictors. Such refined information allows for more accurate capturing of biodiversity patterns for the purposes of bioregionalization, delineation of protected areas, or designing of biodiversity surveys.     

Effect of scale on trait predictors of species responses to agriculture

Species persistence in human‐altered landscapes can depend on factors operating at multiple spatial scales. To understand anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity, it is useful to examine relationships between species traits and their responses to land‐use change. A key knowledge gap concerns whether these relationships vary depending on the scale of response under consideration. We examined how local‐ and large‐scale habitat variables influence the occupancy dynamics of a bird community in cloud forest zones in the Colombian Chocó‐Andes. Using data collected across a continuum of forest and agriculture, we examined which traits best predict species responses to local variation in farmland and which traits best predict species responses to isolation from contiguous forest. Global range size was a strong predictor of species responses to agriculture at both scales; widespread species were less likely to decline as local habitat cover decreased and as distance from forest increased. Habitat specialization was a strong predictor of species responses only at the local scale. Open‐habitat species were particularly likely to increase as pasture increased, but they were relatively insensitive to variation in distance to forest. Foraging plasticity and flocking behavior were strong predictors of species responses to distance from forest, but not their responses to local habitat. Species with lower plasticity in foraging behaviors and obligate flock‐following species were more likely to decline as distance from contiguous forest increased. For species exhibiting these latter traits, persistence in tropical landscapes may depend on the protection of larger contiguous blocks of forest, rather than the integration of smaller‐scale woodland areas within farmland. Species listed as threatened or near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List were also more likely to decline in response to both local habitat quality and isolation from forest relative to least‐concern species, underlining the importance of contiguous forests for threatened taxa.     

Persistence of Forest Birds in the Costa Rican Agricultural Countryside

Abstract:  Understanding the persistence mechanisms of tropical forest species in human-dominated landscapes is a fundamental challenge of tropical ecology and conservation. Many species, including more than half of Costa Rica's native land birds, use mostly deforested agricultural countryside, but how they do so is poorly known. Do they commute regularly to forest or can some species survive in this human-dominated landscape year-round? Using radiotelemetry, we detailed the habitat use, movement, foraging, and nesting patterns of three bird species, Catharus aurantiirostris , Tangara icterocephala , and Turdus assimilis , by obtaining 8101 locations from 156 individuals. We chose forest birds that varied in their vulnerability to deforestation and were representative of the species found both in forest and human-dominated landscapes. Our study species did not commute from extensive forest; rather, they fed and bred in the agricultural countryside. Nevertheless, T. icterocephala and T. assimilis , which are more habitat sensitive, were highly dependent on the remaining trees. Although trees constituted only 11% of land cover, these birds spent 69% to 85% of their time in them. Breeding success of C. aurantiirostris and T. icterocephala in deforested habitats was not different than in forest remnants, where T. assimilis experienced reduced breeding success. Although this suggests an ecological trap for T. assimilis , higher fledgling survival in forest remnants may make up for lower productivity. Tropical countryside has high potential conservation value, which can be enhanced with even modest increases in tree cover. Our findings have applicability to many human-dominated tropical areas that have the potential to conserve substantial biodiversity if appropriate restoration measures are taken.     

Bird extirpations and community dynamics in an Andean cloud forest over 100 years of land-use change

Long-term studies to understand biodiversity changes remain scarce—especially so for tropical mountains. We examined changes from 1911 to 2016 in the bird community of the cloud forest of San Antonio, a mountain ridge in the Colombian Andes. We evaluated the effects of past land-use change and assessed species vulnerability to climate disruption. Forest cover decreased from 95% to 50% by 1959, and 33 forest species were extirpated. From 1959 to 1990, forest cover remained stable, and an additional 15 species were lost—a total of 29% of the forest bird community. Thereafter, forest cover increased by 26% and 17 species recolonized the area. The main cause of extirpations was the loss of connections to adjacent forests. Of the 31 (19%) extirpated birds, 25 have ranges peripheral to San Antonio, mostly in the lowlands. Most still occurred regionally, but broken forest connections limited their recolonization. Other causes of extirpation were hunting, wildlife trade, and water diversion. Bird community changes included a shift from predominantly common species to rare species; forest generalists replaced forest specialists that require old growth, and functional groups, such as large-body frugivores and nectarivores, declined disproportionally. All water-dependent birds were extirpated. Of the remaining 122 forest species, 19 are vulnerable to climate disruption, 10 have declined in abundance, and 4 are threatened. Our results show unequivocal species losses and changes in community structure and abundance at the local scale. We found species were extirpated after habitat loss and fragmentation, but forest recovery stopped extirpations and helped species repopulate. Land-use changes increased species vulnerability to climate change, and we suggest reversing landscape transformation may restore biodiversity and improve resistance to future threats.     

Habitat Matrix Effects on Pond Occupancy in Newts

Abstract: In farmlands, the population viability of many amphibians is suspected to depend on the resistance the matrix of crop fields presents to movements between ponds and terrestrial sites and movements among ponds. Over recent decades the increase in cereal growing at the expense of cattle breeding has caused a drastic change in habitat matrix in many European regions. We investigated the effect of such change on populations of three newt species (   Triturus helveticus , T. alpestris , and T. cristatus ) by comparing their abundances in sites that varied in amount of cultivated ground. A multivariate regression analysis of the relationship of newt abundance to both pond and landscape variables demonstrated the negative influence of cultivated ground on abundance. The width of the uncultivated sector linking the pond to the forest was a good predictor of abundance after the influences of both pond area and fish presence were removed. Moreover, newt presence was positively related to the number of ponds within that 50-ha surrounding area, highlighting the role of metapopulation functioning in newt occupancy of ponds. The relationship between newt abundance and width of uncultivated sectors agrees with present knowledge of the orientation mechanisms that underlie migration movements in urodeles. Such a relationship between connectedness and sector width shows that narrow, linear corridors such as hedgerows may not be useful in newt conservation. Our study also highlights the need to incorporate a behavioral component of habitat use into models of connectivity in conservation biology.     

Lessons from other disciplines for setting management thresholds for biodiversity conservation

Successful, state-dependent management, in which the goal of management is to maintain a system in a desired state, involves defining the boundaries between different states. Once these boundaries have been defined, managers require a strategic action plan with thresholds that initiate management interventions to either maintain or return the system to a desired state. This approach to management is widely used across diverse industries from agriculture, to medicine, to information technology, but it has only been adopted in conservation management relatively recently. Conservation practitioners have expressed a willingness to integrate this structured approach in their management systems, but they have also voiced concerns, including lack of a robust process for doing so. Given the widespread use of state-dependent management in other fields, we conducted an extensive review of the literature on threshold-based management to gain insight into how and where it is applied and identify potential lessons for conservation management. We identified 22 industries using 75 different methods for setting management thresholds in 843 studies. Methods spanned six broad approaches, including expert driven, statistical, predictive, optimization, experimental, and artificial intelligence methods. The objectives of each of these studies influenced the approaches used, including the methods for setting thresholds and selecting actions, and the number of thresholds set. The role of value judgments in setting thresholds was clear; studies across all industries frequently involved experts in setting thresholds, often accompanied by computational tools to simulate the consequences of proposed thresholds under different conditions. Of the 30 conservation studies examined, two-thirds used expert-driven methods, consistent with prior evidence that experience-based information often drives conservation management decisions. The methods we identified from other disciplines could help conservation decision makers set thresholds for management interventions in different contexts, linking monitoring to management actions and ensuring that conservation interventions are timely and effective.     

Thresholds in Songbird Occurrence in Relation to Landscape Structure

Abstract:  Theory predicts the occurrence of threshold levels of habitat in landscapes, below which ecological processes change abruptly. Simulation models indicate that below critical thresholds, fragmentation of habitat influences patch occupancy by decreasing colonization rates and increasing rates of local extinction. Uncovering such putative relationships is important for understanding the demography of species and in developing sound conservation strategies. Using segmented logistic regression, we tested for thresholds in occurrence of 15 bird species as a function of the amount of suitable habitat at multiple scales (150–2000-m radii). Suitable habitat was defined quantitatively based on previously derived, spatially explicit distribution models for each species. The occurrence of 10 out of 15 species was influenced by the amount of habitat at a landscape scale (≥500-m radius). Of these species all but one were best predicted by threshold models. Six out of nine species exhibited asymptotic thresholds; the effects of habitat loss intensified at low amounts of habitat in a landscape. Landscape thresholds ranged from 8.6% habitat to 28.7% (     = 18.5 ± 2.6%[95% CI]). For two species landscape thresholds coincided with sensitivity to fragmentation; both species were more likely to occur in large patches, but only when the amount of habitat in a landscape was low. This supports the fragmentation threshold hypothesis. Nevertheless, the occurrence of most species appeared to be unaffected by fragmentation, regardless of the amount of habitat present at landscape extents. The thresholds we identified may be useful to managers in establishing conservation targets. Our results indicate that findings of landscape-scale studies conducted in regions with relatively high proportions of habitat and low fragmentation may not be applicable in regions with low habitat proportions and high fragmentation.     

Parasitism at the Landscape Scale: Cowbirds Prefer Forests

Landscape-scale examination of parasitism patterns of Brown-headed Cowbirds ( Molothrus ater ) revealed heterogeneous parasitism rates across the mosaic of a forest and associated old-field communities. In a two year study in Dutchess County, New York, we found a significantly higher parasitism rate in the forest-interior community ( n = 301 nests; 17 species) than on the species in the adjacent and nearby old field and edge ( n = 328 nests; 15 species; 32.3% versus 6.5%; p < 0.0001). Cowbirds invaded a mature 1300-ha forest stand even when their traditional host species were available in adjacent old-field and edge habitats. The forest and old-field study areas were located in a 38,000-ha township with 55% forest cover and contained numerous agriculture, dairy, and horse farms that provided favorable habitat for cowbirds. Within-forest examination of parasitism patterns revealed four aspects of cowbird parasitism that contrasted with patterns described in other regions: (1) parasitism was concentrated significantly more often on ground- and low-nesting (nests ≤ 1 m) forest species than on medium- and high-nesting species (nests> 1 m; 35.01% versus 29.93%; p = 0.0393); (2) parasitism was not significantly greater on Neotropical migrant species than on short-distance migrants and residents; (3) the parasitism rate was not higher in nests close to edges; and (4) the parasitism level was low on certain forest species (such as Wood Thrush) that have experienced high parasitism levels in the Midwest. From a management perspective these data suggest that cowbirds exhibit regional differences in host and habitat use; the target host community of a particular cowbird population is unpredictable at the landscape scale; and a landscape scale should be used in designing cowbird studies to accurately assess local population dynamics.     

Distinct mycorrhizal communities on new and established hosts in a transitional tropical plant community

The extent to which interspecific plants share mycorrhizal fungal communities depends on the specificity of the symbiosis. For tropical forest tree seedlings, colonization by mycorrhizal fungi associated with established vegetation could have important consequences for survival and growth. I used a novel molecular technique to assess the potential for sharing of mycorrhizas in forest and pasture in southern Costa Rica, by identifying arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in roots of the forest canopy tree species Terminalia amazonia, pasture grasses Urochloa ruziziensis and U. decumbens, and seedlings of T. amazonia planted into experimental reforestation plots. I tested the hypotheses that experimental seedlings were colonized either by the AM fungal community of the forest T. amazonia (suggesting host specificity) or of Urochloa (suggesting absence of specificity/importance of local environment). After two years, pasture-grown T. amazonia seedlings were colonized by neither community, but rather by a species of Glomus that was rarely observed on the other plants. These results suggest that conspecific seedlings planted into existing vegetation generate a distinct mycorrhizal community that may influence competitive interactions and the relative costs and benefits of the AM fungal symbiosis at early stages in the life cycle of tropical trees.     

Aggressive thresholds in Dendropsophus ebraccatus: habituation and sensitization to different call types

Males in many chorusing anuran species use aggressive calls during defense of calling spaces from other males. The minimal intensity of another male’s vocalizations that elicits an aggressive call response has been termed the aggressive threshold. Previous studies of aggressive thresholds have shown that they are plastic: males habituated (increased their aggressive thresholds) in response to repeated presentation of stimuli above initial threshold levels. Habituation likely contributes to the stable chorus structure of these species, in which aggressive calling is rare compared to advertisement calls. I have observed high levels of aggressive calling in the treefrog Dendropsophus ebraccatus, suggesting that males of this species do not habituate. In this study, I investigated the plasticity of aggressive thresholds in D. ebraccatus. I measured the aggressive thresholds of males before and after suprathreshold stimulation by both advertisement and aggressive calls. I found that the different call types had different effects: males habituated to advertisement calls but lowered their aggressive thresholds in response to aggressive calls. I consider the latter response to be an example of sensitization, a behavior that has been documented infrequently in vocalizing anurans. Sensitization is a plausible mechanism responsible for the high levels of aggressive calling observed in this species. Given the high costs of aggressive calling, however, it is unclear why a mechanism that increases aggressive call output would be maintained.     

Trends over time in tree and seedling phylogenetic diversity indicate regional differences in forest biodiversity change

Changing climate conditions may impact the short-term ability of forest tree species to regenerate in many locations. In the longer term, tree species may be unable to persist in some locations while they become established in new places. Over both time frames, forest tree biodiversity may change in unexpected ways. Using repeated inventory measurements five years apart from more than 7000 forested plots in the eastern United States, we tested three hypotheses: phylogenetic diversity is substantially different from species richness as a measure of biodiversity; forest communities have undergone recent changes in phylogenetic diversity that differ by size class, region, and seed dispersal strategy; and these patterns are consistent with expected early effects of climate change. Specifically, the magnitude of diversity change across broad regions should be greater among seedlings than in trees, should be associated with latitude and elevation, and should be greater among species with high dispersal capacity. Our analyses demonstrated that phylogenetic diversity and species richness are decoupled at small and medium scales and are imperfectly associated at large scales. This suggests that it is appropriate to apply indicators of biodiversity change based on phylogenetic diversity, which account for evolutionary relationships among species and may better represent community functional diversity. Our results also detected broadscale patterns of forest biodiversity change that are consistent with expected early effects of climate change. First, the statistically significant increase over time in seedling diversity in the South suggests that conditions there have become more favorable for the reproduction and dispersal of a wider variety of species, whereas the significant decrease in northern seedling diversity indicates that northern conditions have become less favorable. Second, we found weak correlations between seedling diversity change and latitude in both zones, with stronger relationships apparent in some ecoregions. Finally, we detected broadscale seedling diversity increases among species with longer-distance dispersal capacity, even in the northern zone, where overall seedling diversity declined. The statistical power and geographic extent of such analyses will increase as data become available over larger areas and as plot measurements are repeated at regular intervals over a longer period of time.     

鼎湖山20公顷森林样地单个物种对群落的构建

大型固定监测森林样地已成为研究森林群落组织机制的一个重要平台。群落里个体之间的相互作用对群落的构建有相当重要的作用。以往的研究主要针对于物种之间的相互作用,而用群落里单个物种与其它所有个体之间相互关系来解释群落构建的研究还很少。采用单个物种-面积关系(ISAR)这一指标对鼎湖山20 hm2样地和BCI 50 hm2样地数据分析,来研究不同样地单个物种是如何对森林群落进行构建的。结果显示,与BCI样地和Sinharaja样地不同,鼎湖山样地大树对周围其它个体的作用几乎是中性的;而对于小树(胸径小于10 cm)来说,鼎湖山样地和BCI样地一样,随着尺度的增加吸引型物种减少,而中性物种增加。说明了不同的群落在不同的发育阶段,单个物种对群落结构的构建有重要的作用不同,将来的研究应该结合群落其它方面的因素来分析群落内个体之间相互作用,例如从时间尺度的谱系和空间因素去分析。     

Variation partitioning of species data matrices: estimation and comparison of fractions

Establishing relationships between species distributions and environmental characteristics is a major goal in the search for forces driving species distributions. Canonical ordinations such as redundancy analysis and canonical correspondence analysis are invaluable tools for modeling communities through environmental predictors. They provide the means for conducting direct explanatory analysis in which the association among species can be studied according to their common and unique relationships with the environmental variables and other sets of predictors of interest, such as spatial variables. Variation partitioning can then be used to test and determine the likelihood of these sets of predictors in explaining patterns in community structure. Although variation partitioning in canonical analysis is routinely used in ecological analysis, no effort has been reported in the literature to consider appropriate estimators so that comparisons between fractions or, eventually, between different canonical models are meaningful. In this paper, we show that variation partitioning as currently applied in canonical analysis is biased. We present appropriate unbiased estimators. In addition, we outline a statistical test to compare fractions in canonical analysis. The question addressed by the test is whether two fractions of variation are significantly different from each other. Such assessment provides an important step toward attaining an understanding of the factors patterning community structure. The test is shown to have correct Type I. error rates and good power for both redundancy analysis and canonical correspondence analysis.     

冀北山区森林群落草本多样性及其与地形关系研究

通过野外调查取样,应用Menhinick丰富度指数、Simpson指数、Shannon-Wiener指数和Pielou均匀度指数研究了冀北山区12种典型森林群落内的草本植物多样性规律,并采用典范对应分析（CCA）方法研究其分布与地形的关系。结果表明：不同的群落类型草本植物的组成和多样性指数不同,山杨（Populus davidiana）纯林的种数最多为34种,黑桦（Betula dahurica Pall）纯林的种数最少为19种,其Simpson指数、Shannon-Wiener指数最高,分别为0.927 3和2.879 6;在1 200～1 700 m之间,随海拔升高物种多样性指数、均匀度指数和丰富度指数呈正相关性,但没有线性上升的趋势关系;选取的地形因子对样点草本的影响程度大小为：坡向〉海拔〉坡度〉坡位〉坡形,坡向是样点草本植物空间差异的最主要地形制约因子,环境解释率为98.7%,证明排序可信。     

Arthropod assemblages are best predicted by plant species composition

Insects and spiders comprise more than two-thirds of the Earth's total species diversity. There is wide concern, however, that the global diversity of arthropods may be declining even more rapidly than the diversity of vertebrates and plants. For adequate conservation planning, ecologists need to understand the driving factors for arthropod communities and devise methods, that provide reliable predictions when resources do not permit exhaustive ground surveys. Which factor most successfully predicts arthropod community structure is still a matter of debate, however. The purpose of this study was to identify the factor best predicting arthropod assemblage composition. We investigated the species composition of seven functionally different arthropod groups (epigeic spiders, grasshoppers, ground beetles, weevils, hoppers, hoverflies, and bees) at 47 sites in The Netherlands comprising a range of seminatural grassland types and one heathland type. We then compared the actual arthropod composition with predictions based on plant species composition, vegetation structure, environmental data, flower richness, and landscape composition. For this we used the recently published method of predictive co-correspondence analysis, and a predictive variant of canonical correspondence analysis, depending on the type of predictor data. Our results demonstrate that local plant species composition is the most effective predictor of arthropod assemblage composition, for all investigated groups. In predicting arthropod assemblages, plant community composition consistently outperforms both vegetation structure and environmental conditions (even when the two are combined), and also performs better than the surrounding landscape. These results run against a common expectation of vegetation structure as the decisive factor. Such expectations, however, have always been biased by the fact that until recently no methods existed that could use an entire (plant) species composition in the explanatory role. Although more recent experimental diversity work has reawakened interest in the role of plant species, these studies still have not used (or have not been able to use) entire species compositions. They only consider diversity measures, both for plant and insect assemblages, which may obscure relationships. The present study demonstrates that the species compositions of insect and plant communities are clearly linked.     

Quantifying Habitat Requirements of Tree-Living Species in Fragmented Boreal Forests with Bayesian Methods

Abstract:  Quantitative conservation objectives require detailed consideration of the habitat requirements of target species. Tree-living bryophytes, lichens, and fungi are a critical and declining biodiversity component of boreal forests. To understand their requirements, Bayesian methods were used to analyze the relationships between the occurrence of individual species and habitat factors at the tree and the stand scale in a naturally fragmented boreal forest landscape. The importance of unexplained between-stand variation in occurrence of species was estimated, and the ability of derived models to predict species' occurrence was tested. The occurrence of species was affected by quality of individual trees. Furthermore, the relationships between occurrence of species at the tree level and size and shape of stands indicated edge effects, implying that some species were restricted to interior habitats of large, regular stands. Yet for the habitat factors studied, requirements of many species appeared similar. Species occurrence also varied between stands; most of the seemingly suitable trees in some stands were unoccupied. The models captured most variation in species occurrence at tree level. They also successfully accounted for between-stand variation in species occurrence, thus providing realistic simulations of stand-level occupancy of species. Important unexplained between-stand variation in species occurrence warns against a simplified view that only local habitat factors influence species' occurrence. Apparently, similar stands will host populations of different sizes due to historical, spatial, and stochastic factors. Thus, habitat suitability cannot be assessed simply by population sizes, and stands lacking a species may still provide suitable habitat and merit protection.     

Community occupancy responses of small mammals to restoration treatments in ponderosa pine forests, northern Arizona, USA

In western North American conifer forests, wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity due to heavy fuel loads that have accumulated after a century of fire suppression. Forest restoration treatments (e.g., thinning and/or burning) are being designed and implemented at large spatial and temporal scales in an effort to reduce fire risk and restore forest structure and function. In ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests, predominantly open forest structure and a frequent, low-severity fire regime constituted the evolutionary environment for wildlife that persisted for thousands of years. Small mammals are important in forest ecosystems as prey and in affecting primary production and decomposition. During 2006-2009, we trapped eight species of small mammals at 294 sites in northern Arizona and used occupancy modeling to determine community responses to thinning and habitat features. The most important covariates in predicting small mammal occupancy were understory vegetation cover, large snags, and treatment. Our analysis identified two generalist species found at relatively high occupancy rates across all sites, four open-forest species that responded positively to treatment, and two dense-forest species that responded negatively to treatment unless specific habitat features were retained. Our results indicate that all eight small mammal species can benefit from restoration treatments, particularly if aspects of their evolutionary environment (e.g., large trees, snags, woody debris) are restored. The occupancy modeling approach we used resulted in precise species-level estimates of occupancy in response to habitat attributes for a greater number of small mammal species than in other comparable studies. We recommend our approach for other studies faced with high variability and broad spatial and temporal scales in assessing impacts of treatments or habitat alteration on wildlife species. Moreover, since forest planning efforts are increasingly focusing on progressively larger treatment implementation, better and more efficiently obtained ecological information is needed to inform these efforts.     

Deforestation and Plant Diversity of Madagascar's Littoral Forests

Abstract:  Few studies have attempted to quantify the reduction or document the floristic composition of forests in Madagascar. Thus, we focused specifically on deforestation and plant diversity in Madagascar's eastern littoral community. We used a data set of approximately 13,500 specimen records compiled from both historical and contemporary collections resulting from recent intensive inventory efforts to enumerate total plant species richness and to analyze the degree of endemism within littoral forests. Change in littoral forest cover from original to current extent was estimated using geographical information systems tools, remote sensing data (satellite imagery and low-elevation digital photography), and environmental data layers. Of the original littoral forest only 10.3% remains in the form of small forest parcels, and only 1.5% of these remaining fragments are included within the existing protected-areas network. Additionally, approximately 13% of Madagascar's total native flora has been recorded from these forests that originally occupied <1% of its total land surface, and over 25% of the 1535 plant species known from littoral forests are endemic to this community. Given the ongoing pressure from human settlement along Madagascar's eastern coast, protection of the remaining forest fragments is critical for their survival. Fifteen of the largest intact littoral forest fragments we identified, collectively representing 41.5% of remaining littoral forest, are among priority sites recommended to the government of Madagascar for plant conservation and incorporation into the protected-areas network.