Museum specimens aid conservation effort in Madagascar

There is a new tool for those developing conservation strategies for threatened species and landscapes: museum specimens. Richard Pearson and Christopher Raxworthy of the American Museum of Natural History dusted off a number of collections from Madagascar and used the location information associated with each species to test different ideas regarding the evolution of locally distributed endemism (unique species confined to small regions). The research paper published this month in Evolution found support for alternative hypotheses, suggesting that multiple processes develop local endemism. This improved knowledge of the processes that lead to endemism can help to identify priorities in conservation planning.

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