Francois Benjamin Vincent Florens

University of Mauritius | UoM · Department of Biosciences and Ocean Studies

The last surviving ([ 1 ][1]) of the three Mascarene-endemic fruit bat species of Mauritius ( Pteropus niger ) now faces elevated extinction risks, as the government disregards science and bows instead to the demands of industry. In response to pressure from fruit growers, the Mauritian government

Flying foxes ( PTEROPUS niger , also known as Mauritius fruit bats) are currently listed as Vulnerable by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) ([ 1 ][1]). Originally inhabitants of all three Mascarene Islands, the P. niger population was driven extinct on Reunion and Rodrigues, leaving only the

Flying foxes provide critical ecosystem services by pollinating and disseminating diverse plant species. Yet, they face intensifying threats, particularly on islands. The situation is epitomized by the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. In December 2016, the Mauritian government implemented the second mass cull of a threatened, endemic flying fox sp...

The Mauritius Kestrel Falco punctatus, once the rarest kestrel worldwide, became an icon of bird conservation after it recovered from four to six individuals in 1974 to some 800 by 2005 following intense conservation management. Its population however then halved within about a decade prompting a re-evaluation of the IUCN status and up listing of t...

Insular communities are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic extinctions and introductions. Changes in composition of island frugivore communities may affect seed dispersal within the native plant community, risking ecological shifts and ultimately co-extinction cascades. Introduced species could potentially mitigate these risks by replacing ec...

Lava tube caves are geological features of insular volcanic oceanic islands like Mauritius, where they represent a very small but highly distinct type of habitat that play an important keystone resource role for biodiversity dependent on caves. Lava tube caves are disproportionately at risks of impacts by human activities, elevating the threats to...

The current mass-extinction of biodiversity is caused by varied human activities, including new and worsening human wildlife conflict (HWC). Such HWC is epitomised by the repeated mass culling of Pteropus niger, a Mauritius frugivorous bat species threatened with extinction that includes commercial fruits in its diet 1 and also plays an important k...

Biological invasions are a major driver of biodiversity loss, especially on islands. Invasive alien vertebrates, in particular, exert varied negative impacts on native plants, and alien rats are among the most detrimental of such vertebrates. Best known as potent seed predators, they also exert other forms of herbivory that may depress seed product...

Small island developing states (SIDS) are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change, economic and environmental shocks 1. In Mauritius, a SIDS located in the Indian Ocean, coastal ecosystems like mangroves ensure essential ecological functions and support coastal communities' livelihoods. Mangroves are a nursery for juvenile fish, they seques...

Human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) arising from fruit bats eating commercial fruits is a worsening problem worldwide epitomized by the Mauritian flying fox (Pteropus niger), a species threatened with extinction and repeatedly mass-culled since 2015. Culling has contributed in halving flying foxes' population and failed to improve commercial fruit produ...

A prominent feature of the modern era is the increasing spread of invasive species, particularly within island and urban ecosystems, and these occurrences provide valuable natural experiments by which evolutionary and invasion hypotheses can be tested. In this study, we used the invasion route of guttural toads (Sclerophrys gutturalis) from natural...

Human–wildlife conflicts (HWC) arising from fruit bats eating commercial fruits is a worsening problem worldwide and is epitomized by the Mauritian flying fox (Pteropus niger), a species threatened with extinction yet repeatedly mass-culled since 2015. Non-lethal solutions for dealing with this HWC are needed, which are rooted in the evidence avail...

The colonization of Mauritius exemplifies the role played by humans in altering the ecosystems of remote oceanic islands, with the island famously being home to the iconic symbol of extinction, the dodo. Only inhabited for about 380 years, it now has the highest population density of any African nation; despite scant natural resources, it also ha...

Mauritius was one of the last places on Earth to be colonized by humans offering one of the most complete history of what native species occurred originally and what was lost, when, and why. This situation can therefore serve as a laboratory to study human impacts in the current age of human-driven species extinction. Mauritius is also one of the m...

Mauritius native forests have been reduced twenty-fold since human colonisation in 1638 and the remaining fragments are highly invaded by alien species. Alien plants are known to lower the survival, growth and reproduction of native trees while invasive animals like the long-tailed macaque compete with the Mauritian flying fox (Pteropus niger) for...

IUCN Red List assessment of the Mauritius endemic tree Badula ovalifolia (Primulaceae), a Critically Endangered species that declined from only six adults in 1997, a few abundantly fruiting and producing viable seeds, to two adults by 2019. By 2021, the only wild sapling and seedling had also died. Meanwhile, two seedlings were produced and planted...

Large island fruit bats (LIFB), species of Pteropus, Acerodon, and related genera in the pteropodid subfamily Pteropodinae, are keystone species for island conservation in the Palaeotropics, playing critical roles as agents of dispersal and pollination of native island plant communities. This keystone role is crumbling because LIFB are collectively...

Frugivore loss has the potential to alter the regeneration of tropical hyperdiverse forests. However, no study has investigated tree diversity maintenance within old-growth protected forests on tropical oceanic islands where conservation stakes are considerable. In the Mascarenes, the largest frugivores including the Dodo went extinct after human c...

The mechanical and chemical properties of fibers, extracted from four Mascarene endemic palm species, were determined in the untreated and mercerized states. Tensile strength of the fibers increased by 26% for the Hurricane fibers and to 92% for Bottle palm. Fibers from the Blue Latan gave the highest strength of 208 MPa. TCI index suggests that in...

Since 1955 snails of the Euglandina rosea species complex and Platydemus manokwari flatworms were widely introduced in attempted biological control of giant African snails (Lissachatina fulica) but have been implicated in the mass extinction of Pacific island snails. We review the histories of the 60 introductions and their impacts on L. fulica and...

en The invertebrate communities of Mauritius host a high degree of endemism, but are also imperilled by an array of factors, including invasive predators. Since their introduction in 1922, guttural toads (Sclerophrys gutturalis) have spread across the island and have been implicated in the decline of a number of endemic invertebrate species. In thi...

A simple method of bonding mutually perpendicular layers of alkaline treated fibres, through the use of Hydroxyethylcellulose has been studied as an alternative to woven fibre-mat. Following alkaline process optimisation by using the Taguchi DoE methodology, fibres treatment with 0.5% wt NaOH for 14 hours improved the tensile strength by 36% compar...

Altered environments in urban areas are known to impact and change animal behaviour. In particular, artificial light at night (ALAN) affects behaviour across taxonomic groups, including reptiles. Geckos in the genus Phelsuma are predominantly diurnal, but some have been documented to alter their foraging behaviour from a diurnal to nocturnal activi...

The wolfsnake of the genus Lycodon present in the Mascarene Islands has recently been referred to as L. capucinus in the literature, but this identification has never been formally confirmed by any morphological study. The taxonomy of the genus Lycodon is poorly resolved, and recent photographs suggest that this identification may be erroneous. Usi...

We present a taxonomic revision of the genus Jumellea (Angraecinae; Orchidaceae) in the Mascarenes based on morphological study and field observations. We examined 328 specimens mostly from the MAU, P and REU, and recognise nine species. We provide a key, morphological descriptions, distributions, habitats, phenologies and conservation assessments...

Since 1955 snails of the Euglandina rosea species complex and Platydemus manokwari flat-worms were widely introduced in attempted biological control of giant African snails (Lissachatina fulica) but have been implicated in the mass extinction of Pacific island snails. We review the histories of the 60 introductions and their impacts on L.

Since 1955 snails of the Euglandina rosea species complex and Platydemus manokwari flat-worms were widely introduced in attempted biological control of giant African snails (Lissachatina fulica) but have been implicated in the mass extinction of Pacific island snails. We review the histories of the 60 introductions and their impacts on L.fulica and...

Replacing synthetic fibres with natural ones is key for clean and sustainable manufacturing. Natural fibres require characterization to investigate their usefulness. However, current testing methodologies require a large sample size due to the strong variation of tensile strength (TS) among the fibre of the same plant species. The development of a...

Species abundance distributions (SADs) characterise the distribution of individuals among species. SADs have rarely been explored on islands and the ecological processes shaping SADs are still not fully understood. Notably, the relative importance of disturbance regime in shaping plant SADs remains poorly known. We investigate the relative importan...

Plant-pollinator mutualisms may be disrupted by alien ants. Such threats are likely to vary spatio-temporally and with other biological invasions, but these aspects are rarely studied. We examined a threatened island endemic scrambler (Roussea simplex, Rousseaceae) about a decade after its pollination by an endemic reptile was found to be disrupted...

While revising the genus Angraecum (Orchidaceae) for the Mascarenes, a new taxon endemic to Mauritius was identified and it is here described as Angraecum baiderae. More than 300 Angraecum specimens, including types, collected in the Mascarenes and Madagascar, and available at DBEV, G, K, KM, L, MARS, MAU, MO, P, REU, SEY, TEF, and TAN were studied...

Flying foxes play keystone ecological roles in plant reproduction. Yet, they face numerous threats, including persecution for eating commercial fruits. This human-wildlife conflict has recently escalated to culling campaigns of a threatened flying fox on Mauritius. Finding non-lethal solutions to this human-wildlife conflict on the island is theref...

Les espèces exotiques envahissantes, de par leurs impacts variés, constituent la plus grande menace pour les milliers de plantes insulaires actuellement considérées comme hautement menacées d'extinction. Parmi celles-ci, les perturbations des mutualismes plantes-pollinisateurs ont fait l'objet d'une attention accrue ces derniers temps. Une telle me...

Les renards volants insulaires (genre Pteropus) font partie des chauves-souris les plus menacées au monde et font face à de nombreuses menaces, notamment des conflits résultant de leur consommation de fruits commerciaux. Maurice a fourni un exemple prononcé d'un tel conflit lorsqu'elle a procédé à des abattages en masses d’individus de la dernière...

Les îles océaniques montagneuses sont souvent des points chauds d'espèces endémiques soumises à des impacts anthropiques forts et rapides qui entraînent une forte extinction et des taux de mise en danger élevés de leur milieu. Maurice, une île océanique de l'Océan Indien défend les taux d'extinction les plus élevés au monde par unité de zone terres...

One of the most important and urgent global challenges facing and endangering humankind today is the rapid loss of biodiversity on which humans depend. This erosion of biodiversity is driven by often accelerating and interacting anthropogenic activities and must be remedied to. This extinction crisis is most acutely felt on oceanic islands, conferr...

We used proteomic profiling to taxonomically classify extinct, alongside extant bird species using mass spectrometry on ancient bone-derived collagen chains COL1A1 and COL1A2. Proteins of Holocene and Late Pleistocene-aged bones from dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and great auk (Pinguinus impennis), as well as bones from chicken (Gallus gallus), rock dov...

Oceanic islands harbour a disproportionately large share of extinct and endangered birds worldwide and up to about 6,800 highly threatened plants, stressing the urgency for conservation efforts there. However, effective conservation action can only be as sound as the ecological understanding on which it is based. Knowledge about the ecology of thre...

The main aim of this paper is to present a critical literature review for the use of NFRC in the manufacture of Wind Turbine Blade (WTB), and to discuss the opportunities of using the woven fibre mat of Pandanus (endemic to the Mascarene region) to reinforce polyester composite for small scale (household) WTB.

The paper is about the characterization of the mechanical and chemical properties of four Mauritian plants, namely, Scleria sieberi (Cyperaceae), Ficus benghalensis (Banyan tree), Panicum maximum, and Ananas bracteatus with a view to using them as an alternate to fibre glass in fibre composite materials.

This rebuttal exposes a small sample of the numerous errors in facts and reasoning that Mr Hervé Hardy used in his ‘arguments’ in support of culling of the Mauritian Flying Fox (Pteropus niger) in three articles that he wrote in the Mauritian newspaper L’Express on the 7th, 19th and 21st December 2018. Once the numerous false claims and untenable ‘...

Rapid population growth and economic change on the tropical islands of Mauritius have led to one of the highest rates of urban build-out in the world. Pressure on many of the island’s natural features and resources increasingly risks further degradation to the environmental services that they provide to the country. Fourteen types of marine and ter...

Fibers from Pandanus utilis leaves were investigated to determine how fibre strength varies with tree and leaf maturity, exposure to sunlight, leaf degradation state, and fibre position along the leaf. Such information is necessary to optimise leaf harvest to obtain strongest fibres. It has been shown that the strongest fibre comes from a young lea...

Aim To quantify the influence of past archipelago configuration on present‐day insular biodiversity patterns, and to compare the role of long‐lasting archipelago configurations over the Pleistocene to configurations of short duration such as at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the present‐day. Location 53 volcanic oceanic islands from 12 archipe...

Human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) pose a growing threat to biodiversity worldwide and solutions can be as sound as the understanding of the HWC itself. Conservation biologists therefore must carefully examine their local situations to inform on which approach and strategies may be best. In this context, Mauritius implemented what may be the first mass...

Abstract: With the eradication of introduced predators (Feral cat, Felis catus ; Black rat, Rattus rattus), but also with the control of exotic plants and their replacement by native plants, the population of Ornate Day Gecko, Phelsuma ornata, a species endemic to Mauritius, has increased significantly on Île aux Aigrettes. Although the population...

Many oceanic island plants are highly threatened with extinction and Mauritius holds its fair share with one of the most threatened biota worldwide and indeed the rarest species too. Although some conservation efforts on Mauritian plants are resulting in successful in-situ recovery, many endemic species, including some well-studied ones, continue t...

Human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) pose a widespread and growing threat to biodiversity worldwide, prompting intensifying research efforts for solutions. Solutions, however, can be as sound as the understanding of the HWC itself, therefore requiring carefully examinations of local situations to inform mitigation strategies. In this context, Mauritius r...

Red list assessment of Pteropus niger, a Mascarene endemic and endangered ecological keystone species subjected to repeated mass-culling campaigns by the Government of Mauritius since 2015, when the country's terrestrial biodiversity protection law was changed specifically to enable culling of the species.

Abstract: This is a first reported observation of predation of the Mauritius endemic Macchabé skink by the Common myna, considered as one of most invasive species globally. Invasion by alien plants and edge effect could potentially increase such events and further put at risk the small, fragmented populations of this skink.

Aim: To determine the role of regional forcing on plot-level species diversity and composition, and to quantify the relative importance of biogeographical and climatic factors in explaining woody plant diversity and composition at the local-, island- and archipelago-scale. Location: Forty-one tropical islands of the Indo-Pacific region from Madagas...

The population of Tropidophora fimbrata, a Mascarene endemic already extinct on La Réunion, has greatly increased on the Nature Reserve of Ile aux Aigrettes (Mauritius) during the last quarter century. This change follows the eradication of rats from the islet, the control of invasive alien plants and probably also the major drop in population of t...

The bird described herein, is a forest species in the Order Passerine. It belongs to the Pycnonotidae, a family of 140 species worldwide. Two Pycnonotids occur in Mauritius: the Mauritius Bulbul, Hypsipetes olivaceus, which as its common name suggests, is endemic to Mauritius island and the Red Whiskered Bulbul, Pycnonotus jocosus, an introduced sp...

Background: Over 10,000 island endemic angiosperms are highly threatened by extinction. Yet, few of these species have the temporal change in their range documented and quantified, particularly within a potentially informative context of a long period of botanical study. Aim: Here, we used Roussea simplex a mono-specific genus endemic to Mauritius,...

Human-wildlife conflicts pose a growing threat to many species worldwide and require increasingly innovative and multi-disciplinary resolutions. Because of their apparent simplicity and political appeal, lethal approaches like culling are often favoured, decisions to cull are typically poorly supported by scientific evidence and the limitations and...