India, Dec. 27 -- The forests of northeast India are home to one of the richest primate groups. This region, one of the most biodiverse on the subcontinent, has 14 primate species, including the Phayre's leaf monkey, hoolock gibbon, Bengal slow loris, and several species of macaques and langurs.

What is the story behind this abundance? The answer seems to be climate change and time.

A study, published in Ecology & Evolution, reveals that historic climate shifts played a decisive role in how these primates evolved, dispersed, and adapted to changing forests. The work used genetic data on nine primate species along with habitat modelling to trace how past climate change drove changes in primate populations.

"This diversity is a consequen...