TY - JOUR
T1 - Impending extinction crisis of the world’s primates
T2 - Why primates matter
AU - Estrada, Alejandro
AU - Garber, Paul A.
AU - Rylands, Anthony B.
AU - Roos, Christian
AU - Fernandez-Duque, Eduardo
AU - Fiore, Anthony Di
AU - Anne-Isola Nekaris, K.
AU - Nijman, Vincent
AU - Heymann, Eckhard W.
AU - Lambert, Joanna E.
AU - Rovero, Francesco
AU - Barelli, Claudia
AU - Setchell, Joanna M.
AU - Gillespie, Thomas R.
AU - Mittermeier, Russell A.
AU - Arregoitia, Luis Verde
AU - de Guinea, Miguel
AU - Gouveia, Sidney
AU - Dobrovolski, Ricardo
AU - Shanee, Sam
AU - Shanee, Noga
AU - Boyle, Sarah A.
AU - Fuentes, Agustin
AU - MacKinnon, Katherine C.
AU - Amato, Katherine R.
AU - Meyer, Andreas L.S.
AU - Wich, Serge
AU - Sussman, Robert W.
AU - Pan, Ruliang
AU - Kone, Inza
AU - Li, Baoguo
PY - 2017/1
Y1 - 2017/1
N2 - Nonhuman primates, our closest biological relatives, play important roles in the livelihoods, cultures, and religions of many societies and offer unique insights into human evolution, biology, behavior, and the threat of emerging diseases. They are an essential component of tropical biodiversity, contributing to forest regeneration and ecosystem health. Current information shows the existence of 504 species in 79 genera distributed in the Neotropics, mainland Africa, Madagascar, and Asia. Alarmingly, ~60% of primate species are now threatened with extinction and ~75% have declining populations. This situation is the result of escalating anthropogenic pressures on primates and their habitats—mainly global and local market demands, leading to extensive habitat loss through the expansion of industrial agriculture, large-scale cattle ranching, logging, oil and gas drilling, mining, dam building, and the construction of new road networks in primate range regions. Other important drivers are increased bushmeat hunting and the illegal trade of primates as pets and primate body parts, along with emerging threats, such as climate change and anthroponotic diseases. Often, these pressures act in synergy, exacerbating primate population declines. Given that primate range regions overlap extensively with a large, and rapidly growing, human population characterized by high levels of poverty, global attention is needed immediately to reverse the looming risk of primate extinctions and to attend to local human needs in sustainable ways. Raising global scientific and public awareness of the plight of the world’s primates and the costs of their loss to ecosystem health and human society is imperative.
AB - Nonhuman primates, our closest biological relatives, play important roles in the livelihoods, cultures, and religions of many societies and offer unique insights into human evolution, biology, behavior, and the threat of emerging diseases. They are an essential component of tropical biodiversity, contributing to forest regeneration and ecosystem health. Current information shows the existence of 504 species in 79 genera distributed in the Neotropics, mainland Africa, Madagascar, and Asia. Alarmingly, ~60% of primate species are now threatened with extinction and ~75% have declining populations. This situation is the result of escalating anthropogenic pressures on primates and their habitats—mainly global and local market demands, leading to extensive habitat loss through the expansion of industrial agriculture, large-scale cattle ranching, logging, oil and gas drilling, mining, dam building, and the construction of new road networks in primate range regions. Other important drivers are increased bushmeat hunting and the illegal trade of primates as pets and primate body parts, along with emerging threats, such as climate change and anthroponotic diseases. Often, these pressures act in synergy, exacerbating primate population declines. Given that primate range regions overlap extensively with a large, and rapidly growing, human population characterized by high levels of poverty, global attention is needed immediately to reverse the looming risk of primate extinctions and to attend to local human needs in sustainable ways. Raising global scientific and public awareness of the plight of the world’s primates and the costs of their loss to ecosystem health and human society is imperative.
KW - Animals Cercopithecidae Ecosystem Extinction, Biological deforestation ecosystem health hunting illegal trade industrial agriculture nonhuman primates primate conservation rural livelihoods sustainable land use tropical forests
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019314783&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.1600946
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.1600946
M3 - Review article
C2 - 28116351
AN - SCOPUS:85019314783
SN - 2375-2548
VL - 3
JO - Science Advances
JF - Science Advances
IS - 1
M1 - e1600946
ER -