Contact:	Bob Nelson				Embargoed for release
		Columbia University			  Wednesday,July 23, 1997
		(212) 854-5573				  2 P.M. EDT
		rjn2@columbia.edu

		Maria Terrone
		Hunter College
		(212) 772-4068
		 maria.terrone@tzayid.hunter.cuny.edu

		Gerald Present
		New York University
		(212) 998-6838
		 gerald.present@nyu.edu




DNA Tests Identify Possible New Chimp Subspecies;
Population Already Threatened With Extinction


	A team of New York City anthropologists has analyzed DNA from a 
chimpanzee population in southern Nigeria and western Cameroon and has 
shown that the population is genetically distinct from the three recognized 
subspecies of common chimpanzee.
	The preliminary finding, reported in the July 24 issue of the British journal 
Nature, means either that a new subspecies of chimpanzees has been discovered, 
or the existing division into three subspecies is erroneous and a new family tree 
must be devised, according to the researchers.  Either result could require more 
aggressive conservation plans for the species, which is endangered throughout its 
range in sub-Saharan Africa.
	If further work confirms that the chimpanzees in Nigeria and western 
Cameroon are indeed a distinct subspecies, the anthropologists suggest that the 
correct name for it is Pan troglodytes vellerosus.  The name has historical
significance:  the British explorer Sir Richard Burton collected a chimpanzee skin 
on an expedition to Mount Cameroon in 1861, and on receiving the skin J.E. Gray 
of the Natural History Museum in London dubbed the creature "vellerosus," 
possibly from the Latin vellereus, or "woolly."  Burton's skin may have 
come from the same subspecies as that discovered by the New York researchers.
	Field research was conducted in July and August of 1995 by Katy Gonder, a 
graduate student at the City University of New York and a research associate in 
Hunter College's Department of Anthropology.  Her research was guided by her 
thesis advisor, John Oates, professor of anthropology at Hunter and African forest 
primate ecologist; Todd Disotell, assistant professor of anthropology at New York 
University and primate molecular geneticist; and Don J. Melnick, a molecular 
evolutionary geneticist, professor of anthropology and biological sciences at 
Columbia University and director of the Center for Environmental Research and 
Conservation (CERC), based at Columbia.  Ms. Gonder conducted her laboratory 
work and analysis both at NYU and with Columbia research scientists Michael 
Forstner and Juan Carlos Morales at CERC.
	The researchers are members of the New York Consortium in Evolutionary 
Primatology, which groups biological anthropologists at Columbia, CUNY, NYU, 
the American Museum of Natural History and the Wildlife Conservation Society 
at the Bronx Zoo.  The Consortium funds graduate students' training and 
research, and it contributed to the costs of Ms. Gonder's field work.  Laboratory 
work was primarily supported by CERC's program in conservation genetics.
	The research has also been supported by Primate Conservation 
Incorporated, a not-for-profit organization in Long Island that funds field studies 
for primate conservation; the Wenner-Gren Foundation in New York, which 
funds anthropological research; and the National Science Foundation.
	Three subspecies of common chimpanzee have been generally recognized, 
based on geographical, morphological and genetic criteria.  Pan troglodytes 
verus  is found in West Africa, Pan troglodytes troglodytes in Central Africa
 and Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii  in East Africa.  Though there are scattered 
groups of chimpanzees in Africa west of Ghana and east to Nigeria, all genetic
 samples of the verussubspecies prior to this study had come from west of 
Ghana, a factor that may account for their considerable genetic divergence from 
the others.
	The study found as much difference between the Nigerian chimps and the 
verus  subspecies as between the two other recognized subspecies.  That 
result, in itself, is not enough to declare a new subspecies, the researchers said, 
but it does throw the existing schema into question.  If the Nigerian chimpanzees 
turn out not to be sufficiently different to be regarded as a distinct subspecies, then
 the other groups of central and eastern chimpanzees now recognized as 
subspecies should only be considered populations of Pan troglodytes 
troglodytes, they said.
	They propose two possible revisions to the existing schema, leaving either 
two or four subspecies.  Either the Nigerian chimps would be grouped with the 
other West African chimps as two related populations, with the East and Central 
African chimps on a separate branch also as related populations.  Or, the West 
African populations would form a separate branch, the Nigerian population a 
second and the Central and East African populations a third and fourth.
	If additional samples confirm that the Nigerian chimps are in fact 
genetically distinct, as the present work seems to indicate, new conservation 
plans should be drawn up to preserve them, Professor Melnick said.  Because
 breeding chimpanzees in captivity and reintroducing them to the wild would be 
very difficult and expensive, such plans would probably involve setting up wildlife 
refuges.
	"In a widespread species, it is often difficult to know where to place one's 
conservation efforts," he said.  "Analyses like the one we've done help to develop a 
road map of conservation priorities based on objective scientific information."
	Ms. Gonder's field trip represented an effort to obtain genetic samples from 
an area where none had previously been taken.  She collected 12 hair samples 
from sleeping nests built nightly by wild chimpanzees in six locations, including 
Gashaka-Gumti National Park, Nigeria's largest wildlife park.  She has returned 
to conduct further work to confirm the initial results by collecting samples in a 
wider area in Nigeria and Cameroon.
	The 12 genetic samples were augmented by 75 more from Genbank, a 
federally-funded repository of genetic data, for a total of 87 animals from four 
populations.  Researchers examined the DNA in cell bodies called mitochondria, 
because such DNA evolves relatively rapidly, making it a good indicator of recent 
genetic changes.  They determined the nucleotide sequence of a segment of
mitochondrial DNA, then compared the resulting sequences for genetic similarity 
using two different methods.  They calculated the total genetic difference among 
individuals and created a phylogenetic tree, but also looked at the pattern of 
similarities and differences at each particular DNA site along the stretch of 
nucleotides analyzed.  Each method has its proponents, but both yielded the same 
result:  the Nigerian chimps were distinct.
	"The fact that the Nigerian samples all sorted out together in our tree and 
that they were well separated from the other named clusters led us to the 
conclusion that we might have a new subspecies," Professor Melnick said.  "They 
are as clearly defined as the other named subspecies, so if this holds true with 
additional samples, you either collapse the other subspecies or name a new one."

Background

	Chimpanzees share 98.4 percent of their genetic material with humans, 
making them our closest animal relatives.  Chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and 
humans represent the remnants of a group of African ape species that was once
much larger.  Their common ancestor probably lived 6 to 8 million years ago.
	Genetic differentiation among modern chimps probably dates to the ice ages 
from 2 million to 11,000 years ago, when African forests became interspersed with 
savannah.  Populations of chimpanzees, which are primarily forest dwellers, 
became geographically isolated and evolved into distinct genetic subpopulations.
	Chimpanzees are endangered both as a result of habitat loss from the 
spread of agriculture and timber exploitation and from hunting, which is 
increasing in spite of bans on the practice.  In the past, much hunting was to 
secure specimens for medical research, but at present most chimps are hunted to 
be consumed as "bushmeat" by poor rural dwellers.
	"Although we have found that chimpanzees still survive in the wild in 
several places where they were not thought to be," Professor Oates said, "given the 
increasing pressures of hunting and habitat destruction, they are certainly 
declining and several populations face imminent extinction."
	Because they are shy creatures, chimpanzees are difficult to observe and
 even harder to number.  Geza Teleki, adjunct professor of anthropology at George
Washington University and former chairman of the Committee for Conservation 
and Care of Chimpanzees, estimated in 1989 that as many as 235,000 or as few as 
150,000 might exist in the wild.  Whatever the exact figure, it is down from the 
millions of animals that existed in Central Africa just 50 years ago.
	The chimpanzee is listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service and the World Conservation Union's Red List, and is an 
Appendix I (endangered) species under the Convention in Trade of Endangered 
Species (CITES).  But in the absence of genetic studies, it has been difficult to 
develop a comprehensive plan to conserve the full diversity of the species.  Studies
such as the current one should provide the needed data, the researchers said.

This document is available at  http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/.  To regularly receive science 
and technology press releases via e-mail, send a message to rjn2@columbia.edu.

7.23.97											19,163