{"id":758905,"date":"2026-07-12T17:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/758905\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T17:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T17:33:10","slug":"missing-link-why-experts-believe-monkeys-and-apes-are-key-to-preventing-a-sixth-mass-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/758905\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing link? Why experts believe monkeys and apes are key to preventing a sixth mass extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Health<\/p>\n

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\"Health<\/p>\n

Monkeys<\/a> are more than just the tricksters of the animal kingdom<\/a> \u2014 they could be the key to its overall survival.<\/p>\n

Scientists fear that the world is heading for a sixth mass extinction <\/a>\u2014 an event where three-quarters of species are lost. That has happened five times in the history of the world. But unlike past events, the latest is being driven largely by human impacts such as pollution<\/a> and climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Researchers are racing to find solutions to stave off such a catastrophic event, which would pose a major threat to the global food supply.<\/p>\n

One Illinois researcher believes she may have stumbled upon the answer in research<\/a> conducted in Southwest China\u2019s mountainous Yunnan Province.<\/p>\n

There, conserving the habitat of 16 species of primates \u2014 including gibbons, snub-nosed monkeys, langurs, macaques and lorises \u2014 could help to protect the other species in their ecosystem and serve as a blueprint for future conservation, research showed. <\/p>\n

\"BorneoBorneo orangutans are seen in Salat island in Indonesia in September 2015. Orangutans are another umbrella species that could aid conservation of other species (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe panda conservation in China has actually been really successful at conserving hundreds of other endemic species because the pandas just need these large areas of forest to have healthy populations,\u201d Amy McEuen, an associate professor and Program Director for Biology at the University of Illinois Springfield, told The Independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith millions of species to protect, we don\u2019t have time to protect one species at a time. Luckily, there are more efficient ways of preserving biodiversity, including using an umbrella species approach,\u201d she explained in a related release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Primates, and other animal groups like big cats and reptiles, are \u201cumbrella species\u201d that range over vast areas. <\/p>\n

By protecting these large habitats for these key species, other creatures will also be shielded from human harms, McEuen explains in her new book How to Think Like an Ecologist<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo female golden snub-nosed monkeys huddle together at the Beauval Zoopark in Saint-Aignan Central France. Focusing conservation efforts on monkeys and other larger mammals may be the key to support ecosystems (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Some of the world\u2019s most adored species are umbrella species, too, such as the orangutan, sea otter and panda bear. That could make arguments for protecting them easier to make, she noted.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are other hurdles that could get in the way.<\/p>\n

Many animals are migratory, which makes them much harder to protect. Hundreds of birds were killed<\/a> during their flights south after colliding with the glass windows of a Chicago convention center in 2023. <\/p>\n

\"AnAn aerial view shows a deforested part of Brazil\u2019s Amazon rainforest last November. Deforestation is one of the major threats to the world\u2019s species (AFP via Getty Images)\"AA worker is seen next to a young panda st the Chengdu research base in China’s southwestern Sichuan province in October 2024. Panda habitat has helped to protect hundreds of other local species (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

McEuen called protecting these species a \u201cmore complicated question.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough, of course, you can think about where to try to keep spots or stepping stones of habitat along their roots or whatever that can help them,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

Still, conservationists are working against a ticking clock. Earth is losing groups of species at the same rate as past mass extinctions, which is hundreds or thousands each year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good news is that we haven’t lost them yet,\u201d said McEuen. <\/p>\n

And no efforts are too small, she believes. Planting a pollinator garden in a yard or on a rooftop could support insect populations and their predators.<\/p>\n

The species themselves are a reason to be hopeful. There\u2019s already evidence that some are adapting to climate change, changing their body size and behavior. Genetic diversity within species can mean some are more resilient than others.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another thing scientists are working to engineer in labs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think using our smarts to help these systems also gives me hope when I think about trying to preserve the amount of diversity that we want to preserve,\u201d McEuen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in healthGet our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-758905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}