Fragmentation of forests threatens monkey population

Black-and-white colobus monkey Copyright: Tim Knight/Primate Gallery

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Fragmentation of forests threatens monkey population</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>The fragmentation of forests can hasten the decline of a monkey population by making common parasites more abundant and introducing new ones, according to research published in <em>Science</em> this week. </P><br />
<P>Over four years, Thomas Gillespie and colleagues compared groups of Colobus monkeys living in an undisturbed forest in the Kibale National Park, western Uganda, with those living in surrounding forests that have been broken into fragments by human activity. They found that the number of monkeys living in the park remained stable whereas the monkey population in the fragmented forests fell by 20 per cent. </P><br />
<P>The number of parasites that affect primates were also higher in the forest fragments. The authors say that there is undoubtedly a higher risk of infection in the disturbed forests and that humans and livestock may be responsible for the increase in parasites.<BR><BR><a  href="/sci.cfm?redir=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5688/1230b?ijkey=wLibAzbVH2Cmg&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to the full article in <EM>Science</EM></A></P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/news/fragmentation-of-forests-threatens-monkey-populati-ssa/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/news/fragmentation-of-forests-threatens-monkey-populati-ssa/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

The fragmentation of forests can hasten the decline of a monkey population by making common parasites more abundant and introducing new ones, according to research published in Science this week.

Over four years, Thomas Gillespie and colleagues compared groups of Colobus monkeys living in an undisturbed forest in the Kibale National Park, western Uganda, with those living in surrounding forests that have been broken into fragments by human activity. They found that the number of monkeys living in the park remained stable whereas the monkey population in the fragmented forests fell by 20 per cent.

The number of parasites that affect primates were also higher in the forest fragments. The authors say that there is undoubtedly a higher risk of infection in the disturbed forests and that humans and livestock may be responsible for the increase in parasites.

Link to the full article in Science