David A. Weisblat
نویسنده
چکیده
Washington-based environmental group, Conservation International. Primates are in peril from a range of human activities, of which the bushmeat trade in central Africa is particularly threatening, along with the logging of rainforests in Indonesia and South America, says the IUCN. A separate major report by the UN Environment Programme on the state of the world’s environment warns of the continuing and growing problem of an expanding human population, climate change and the mass extinction of animals and plants. On primates, it highlighted the bushmeat trade as a particular danger which it said is running at six times the level that can be considered sustainable. Mittermeier said that protecting forests from logging would preserve the habitats of many endangered primates while at the same time would help to protect the planet against climate change. “By protecting the world’s remaining tropical forests, we save primates and other endangered species,” he said. The list of the most endangered species includes eleven from Asia, seven from Africa, four from Madagascar and three from South America. The loss of primates is also affecting the health of trees because of the role primates play in seed dispersal and forest regeneration, the report said. The UNEP warns: “Without an accelerated effort to reform the way we collectively do business on planet Earth we will shortly be in trouble if indeed we are not already.” Peril: The Delacour’s langur, from Vietnam, is one of the primate species declining alarmingly as a result of increased human encroachment. (Photo: © Terry Whittaker/ Alamy.) Q & A
منابع مشابه
Maternal and zygotic expression of a nanos-class gene in the leech Helobdella robusta: primordial germ cells arise from segmental mesoderm.
The nanos-class gene of the leech Helobdella robusta (Hro-nos) is present as a maternal transcript whose levels decay during cleavage; HRO-NOS protein is more abundant in the D quadrant cells relative to the A, B, and C quadrants; and HRO-NOS is more abundant in the ectodermal precursor cell (DNOPQ) than in its sister mesodermal precursor (DM) (Pilon and Weisblat, 1997). Here, using in situ hyb...
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عنوان ژورنال:
- Current Biology
دوره 17 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2007