Climate change has threatened the population of the planet's most endangered chimpanzee sub-species. The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is the most endangered of all chimpanzee sub-species in the world, with only about 6,000 individuals estimated in the wild. The biggest threat to these is their disappearing habitat due to climate change. Researchers have predicted the mountainous rainforest habitat could disappear almost entirely under the worst-case scenario by 2080. With roughly half of the 6,000 Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees existing in the ecotone habitat of central Cameroon, the results suggest that this sub-species of chimpanzee is particularly vulnerable to climate change. The research was published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

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