Endangered Chimpanzees are at Risk of Dramatic Habitat Loss in Just 5 Years

Dramatic habitat loss could threaten the population of the world's most endangered chimp subspecies. Scientists have found that by 2020, these chimps may face extinction.

"The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is perhaps the least studied of all chimpanzee subspecies," said Paul Sesink Clee, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This is the first time that their distribution and habitat has been studied in such detail, and the data used to predict how their habitats might alter under climate change. We were surprised to see that the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees living in the savanna-woodland habitat of central Cameroon are under the most immediate threat of climate change, and may completely lose their habitat within our lifetime."

In order to better understand these chimps, the researches mapped their precise geographic locations using reports of sightings, evidence of activity including nests and tools, and fecal and hair samples collected for genetic analysis. This revealed the distribution of two distinct populations of these chimps: those in the mountainous rainforests of western Cameroon and those in the woodland-savanna.

The scientists then combined the population data with the environmental characteristics of their locations to determine how habitat drives the distribution of these rare chimps. Then, they predicted how the habitats might change under climate change scenarios.

The team predicted little change in the mountainous forest habitat; however, they found the ecotone habitat of the second population would decline quickly under all scenarios by the year 2020. Not only that, but the habitat and population could disappear entirely under the worst case scenario by 2080.

Currently, about half of the 6,000 Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees still left in the wild exist in the ecotone habitat of central Cameroon. This means that this subspecies could be particularly vulnerable to climate change.

The findings are published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).