Biodiversity Surveys in the Southern Borderlands of the People's Republic of China

University Of Kansas Center For Research Inc, Lawrence KS

Investigators

Abstract

This project represents an integrated effort to document the terrestrial vertebrate biodiversity of the southern borderlands of China, one of the least well explored regions worldwide. Specialists working with birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians will staff the expeditions, accompanied by experts with various parasite groups (fleas, flies, ticks, lice, nematodes, cestodes, blood parasites, coccidia, etc.). The 5 expeditions will each focus on a different sector of the borderlands region, including the border areas with Laos, Vietnam, Burma, and northeastern India. Each specialist will use tools for inventory that are the 'state of the art' in his or her own field. The end result will be extensive series of specimens and other new biological material for detailed study, as well as numerous scientific publications documenting local vertebrate and parasite communities, taxonomic insights, and new species. Parasite specimens will be collected and stabilized, with a view towards long-term curation and eventual study. Project data will be served to the broader scientific community with maximum efficiency via Internet-based distributed database technology. This project is near-unique in its broad-spectrum assessment of vertebrates and many groups of parasites. Such a view of vertebrates and the full (or at least a broad sample of the) diversity of their parasites is available from few places on Earth, making for a new view into the true biological richness of an area. In the case of the Chinese southern borderlands, not only will many of the parasites be unknown to science, but even some or many of the vertebrate hosts as well. Many new insights into the conservation of biological diversity will come from such detailed views of the nature of this diversity. This information will go beyond the quick-and-easy vertebrate-based conservation priorities that currently dominate conservation biology to provide a detailed view of the true dimensions of biological diversity in a complex and little-known region.