Bringing together the work of the most innovative conservation and evolutionary biologists, geologists, and anthropologists currently working in Madagascar, this book provides the first overview in more than twenty years of how natural and human-induced changes have moulded the island's ecosystems. The contributors explore such questions as how Holocene Epoch climate shifts affected the distribution of reptile populations, how the arrival of humans led to the extinction of large-bodied lemurs, and how agricultural practices have exacerbated the gully erosion that ravages central Madagascar.