Supporting code, tables and data for: Megafrugivores as fading shadows of the past: Extant frugivores and the abiotic environment as the most important determinants of the distribution of palms in Madagascar

The extinction of all Madagascar’s megafrugivores ca. 1000 years ago, may have left its signature on the current distribution of vertebrate-dispersed plants across the island, due to the loss of effective seed dispersal. In this study, we dissect the roles of extinct and extant frugivore distributions, abiotic variables, human impact and spatial predictors on the compositional turnover, or beta-diversity, of palm (Arecaceae) species and their fruit sizes across 40 assemblages on Madagascar. Variation partitioning showed that palm beta-diversity is mostly shaped by the distribution of extant frugivores (8 lemur, 3 bird, 2 rodent and 1 bat species) and the abiotic environment (e.g., forest cover, slope and temperature), and to a lesser extent by the distribution of extinct frugivores (5 giant lemur and 3 elephant bird species). However, the contribution of these variables differed between dry western assemblages and wet eastern assemblages, with a more prominent role, albeit still small, ...