Southeast Asia harbors the greatest diversity of higher primates (monkeys and apes) in the old world. Despite this diversity, and a long history of its study, there is little agreement on the number of species and genera that exist and how they are related to one another. The need to establish a basic consensus on these issues is extremely important to the study of our own evolution and vital to the conservation management of these unique Asian primates. The primary goals of this project are to: (1) use a comprehensive set of molecular data to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships among Asia's macaque monkeys, leaf monkeys, and gibbon apes; (2) reconstruct the evolutionary histories of these three groups of higher primates by simultaneously considering their respective evolutionary relationships, their current geographical distributions, and what we know of the geological processes, climate and ecology of the regions in which this great diversification took place at the time it was occurring; and (3) define the appropriate taxonomic units and geographical regions for the conservation of the species that each group contains. The successful completion of this project will add significantly to our understanding of mammalian evolution and to the conservation of primate biodiversity.
