Biogeography and Conservation of Andean Primates in Peru Sam Shanee, Noga Shanee, Nicola Campbell and Nestor Allgas Introduction Peru is considered one of the most biodiverse countries on earth (Rodríguez and Young 2000; Pacheco et al. 2009; Schulenberg et al. 2010). In Latin America, Peru ranks third in both overall and endemic mammal diversity (Pacheco et al. 2009). Globally it ranks fourth in terms of primate species diversity (55 taxa in 35 species), third in diversity of genera (13 genera) and joint first in diversity of primate families (5 families, together with Brazil, Colombia and Madagascar) (IUCN/PSG 2012). The country’s biogeography is dominated by the Amazonian lowlands in the east, the coastal deserts in the west and the Andean cordillera, which transects the entire country north to south for over 1,500 km (Fig. 1) (Brack Egg 1986; Olson and Dinerstein 1998; Young and Leon 1999; Rodríguez and Young 2000; Olson et al. 2001). The highlands of Peru are an important ecoge- ographic zone to consider despite their limited area; although covering only 5 % (35,000 km 2 ) of Peru’s tropical humid forests, the country’s eastern Andean cloud forests contain comparable species diversity to that of the much larger (700,000 km 2 ) Amazonian lowlands (Mittermeier 1988; Bubb et al. 2004; Pacheco et al. 2009). The biogeography of primates is the result of the complex relationship between geographical, historical and ecological factors (Bush 1994; Tuomisto and Ruokolainen 1997; Lehman and Fleagle 2006). The major geographical and his- torical factors affecting the biogeography of Andean primates are the uplift of the Andes Mountain range, the presence of refugia and barriers such as major rivers S. Shanee (&) Á N. Shanee Á N. Campbell Neotropical Primate Conservation, Manchester, UK e-mail: sam@neoprimate.org N. Allgas Asociación Neotropical Primate Conservation Perú, Yambrasbamba, Amazonas, Peru N. Allgas Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru N. B. Grow et al. (eds.), High Altitude Primates, Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects 44, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-8175-1_4, Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 63