Data from: Climate change and human colonization triggered habitat loss and fragmentation in Madagascar.

The relative effect of past climate fluctuations and anthropogenic
activities on current biome distribution is subject to increasing
attention, notably in biodiversity hot spots. In Madagascar, where humans
arrived in the last ~4 to 5,000 years, the exact causes of the demise of
large vertebrates that cohabited with humans are yet unclear. The
prevailing narrative holds that Madagascar was covered with forest before
human arrival and that the expansion of grasslands was the result of
human-driven deforestation. However, recent studies have shown that
vegetation and fauna structure substantially fluctuated during the
Holocene. Here, we study the Holocene history of habitat fragmentation in
the north of Madagascar using a population genetics approach. To do so, we
infer the demographic history of two northern Madagascar neighbouring,
congeneric and critically endangered forest dwelling lemur
species—Propithecus tattersalli and Propithecus perrieri—using population
genetic analyses. Our results highlight the necessity to consider
population structure and changes in connectivity in demographic history
inferences. We show that both species underwent demographic fluctuations
which most likely occurred after the mid-Holocene transition. While
mid-Holocene climate change probably triggered major demographic changes
in the two lemur species range and connectivity, human settlements that
expanded over the last four millennia in northern Madagascar likely played
a role in the loss and fragmentation of the forest cover.