Prospective Survivability of the Macaques in China

Understanding how climate, ecological and environmental changes, and human activities have driven animals’ evolutionary development and predicting their prospective distribution profiles are essential to developing effective conservation strategies. Macaques (Macaca), which were once widely distributed in China, provide an ideal research model for such an effort. We use fossil locations of monkeys from the Pleistocene (between 2.6 million and 12,000 years ago) and historical records of climatic, ecological, and environmental changes during the glaciation to reconstruct monkeys’ geographic distribution changes from 120,000 - 22,000 BP to the present, based on which their future survival profiles are modeled. Thus, this study offers a unique longitudinal and cross-sectional view of monkeys’ evolutionary history and predicts their prospective developmental trajectories. Such comprehensive and systematic explorations provide solid scientific information and evidence to develop effective conservation strategies for the monkeys.

Read the full article, published by Zoological Studies, here

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