A KEYSTONE SPECIES

Species selected for conservation efforts should be chosen by seeing how much impact that species has on their environment and by preserving the most different genes as possible. Species that are important to their area are called keystone species; a dramatic change would be see if keystone species went extinct. The Eulemur Coronatus, known as lemur, is responsible for the ecosystem in Madagascar, and Madagascar contains 80% of endemic species, which are species that only are found in Madagascar. Lemurs are an endemic species and phylogenetic relationships show that lemurs are very unique from other primates. Therefore, they will contain a least amount of shared genes and more distant genes. This explains that protecting them alone will not just give a better spread of diverse genes, but the ecosystem they maintain contains many other different species and genes that will also help increase the spread of diverse genes. For these reasons, there should be more effort to help these small animals.

http://scienceray.com/biology/ecology/eulemur-coronatus-a-keystone-species/