Data from: Seed dispersal syndromes in the Madagascan flora: The unusual importance of primates

Madagascar is one of the most threatened biodiversity hotspots, and
protection of its biodiversity is becoming increasingly urgent as
deforestation of the island continues. For the long-term success of
conservation efforts it is essential that key ecological processes, such
as seed dispersal, are protected and restored. Therefore, the
identification of ecological gaps is a vital task. For Madagascar, only
little is known about plant–animal interactions, and traditional methods
of ecological research are too time-consuming to provide crucial
information about breakdowns in these interactions. To identify likely
dispersal gaps we therefore used a theoretical approach to analyse
plant–disperser interactions in Madagascar. We used data science tools to
impute missing data on relevant plant traits to subsequently predict the
most likely dispersal agents for each of Madagascar’s endemic plant
species. We found that 38% of the endemic species (N = 8,784) are
endozoochorous, and among these 26–41% display a primate syndrome and
17–19% a bird syndrome (depending on the definition of syndromes). This
lower percentage of endozoochorous species and higher percentage of
species with a primate syndrome in Madagascar compared to other tropical
areas reflects the unusual disperser guild on the island. Only five bird
species but 20 lemur species are frugivorous, and 16 of those lemur
species are currently threatened with extinction. The disappearance of
frugivorous lemurs would significantly change the vegetation dynamics of
Madagascar’s ecosystems, and a high proportion of Madagascar’s endemic
plants would enter an extinction vortex.