Biodiversity of Sakhalin Island

该项目将对俄罗斯库页岛进行初步的、第一年的详细生物调查和盘存。一个由俄罗斯、日本和美国科学家组成的小组将对植物、昆虫、蜘蛛、淡水和陆生软体动物、淡水鱼类、两栖动物和爬行动物进行调查和清点。这项工作是对俄罗斯千岛群岛调查人员过去七年类似工作的合理和急需的延伸。作为千岛群岛殖民的四个主要生物来源之一——其他三个是北海道、堪察加半岛和亚洲大陆——库页岛是迄今为止最不为人所知的生物，面临着过度开发的最大危险。它与大陆相距近1000公里，南端几乎与日本北海道相接，形成了一个天然的过滤器或屏障，阻止动植物从亚洲大陆传播到千岛群岛。虽然有大量关于广泛的、商业上重要的物种的资料，如帝王蟹、鲑鱼、鳕鱼和各种海洋哺乳动物，但对整个库页岛的动植物知之甚少。与此同时，自然资源商业开发的急剧增加对该岛构成了严重的环境威胁。通过使用标准化的调查方法、现代基于计算机的清单程序和通过互联网传播信息，调查结果将提供物种多样性模式的重要基线数据，这些数据可以与千岛群岛和其他以类似方式取样的地区进行准确比较。该项目将与东道国的大学、国家和地方政府合作，为教师、学生和政府生物学家提供培训。最后，这项工作将提供一个信息基础，将促进长期的未来研究和保护整个库页岛-千岛行政区域独特的岛屿生物。

This project will conduct the initial, first-year phase of detailed biotic survey and inventory of the Russian island of Sakhalin. A team of Russian, Japanese, and American scientists will conduct a survey and inventory of the plants, insects, spiders, freshwater and terrestrial mollusks, freshwater fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. This work is a logical and much needed extension to the previous seven years of similar work by the investigators in the Russian Kuril Archipelago. As one of four primary source biotas for the colonization of the Kuril Islands--the others being Hokkaido, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the Asian mainland--Sakhalin is by far the least known biologically and in the greatest danger of over exploitation. Narrowly separated from the continent for nearly 1,000 km and almost touching Hokkaido, Japan, at its southern tip, it forms a natural filter or barrier to dispersal of plants and animals from the Asian mainland to the Kurils. Although considerable information is available for wide-ranging, commercially important species, such as king crab, salmon, cod, and various marine mammals, the flora and fauna of Sakhalin as a whole are poorly known. At the same time, a steep rise in commercial exploitation of natural resources poses a serious environmental threat to the island. Using standardized survey methods, modern computer-based inventory procedures, and dissemination of information through the Internet, the results of the survey will provide important baseline data on patterns of species diversity that can be compared accurately with the Kuril Islands and other regions sampled in similar ways. Working cooperatively with universities and the national and local governments of the host country, the project will provide training for faculty, students, and government biologists. Finally, the work will provide a foundation of information that will promote long-term future research as well as conservation of the unique island biotas of the entire Sakhalin-Kuril administrative district.