Biodiversity of the Russian Far East: Sakhalin Island

“俄罗斯远东生物多样性”是一项长期的国际努力，旨在记录鄂霍次克海周围陆地上动植物的多样性。该地区是北半球生物多样性最丰富但却鲜为人知的地区之一。与此同时，与世界上大多数其他同等大小的高纬度地区相比，它的生物群相对没有受到干扰。由于政治原因，也因为它的偏远和恶劣的气候，除了少数俄罗斯生物学家外，所有人都忽略了这个地区。关于鄂霍茨基的动植物的信息在俄罗斯之外基本上是未知的，只有很少的信息是在俄罗斯出版的，因此相对来说是难以获得的。自1994年以来，每年夏天，来自华盛顿大学、俄罗斯科学院远东分院和日本北海道大学札幌分校和函馆分校的30多名科学家都会带着他们的学生，利用陆上考察站或远航的俄罗斯科考船，用八周的时间探索偏远的岛屿和大陆海岸线。虽然我们主要关注的是千岛群岛的岛屿生物，但我们未来两年的目的地将是库页岛。我们的目标是详细记录俄罗斯远东地区水生和陆生栖息地的物种多样性，作为研究生物模式和过程的序幕，并为该地区的保护策略的发展奠定基础。从地衣到苔类，从蜘蛛到青蛙的生物材料正在被收集、整理，并提供给世界各地的专家。许多科学上的新物种正在被命名、描述和分类，许多科学和通俗的文章正在发表。在保护方面，我们的工作为促进这些独特生物的长期环境保护提供了重要的信息基础。最后，我们在俄罗斯远东地区的生物多样性研究对本科、研究生和研究生水平的教育和科学人力资源的发展做出了重大贡献。自1994年以来，该项目为数十名学生提供了资金支持，并直接参与了实地和实验室研究。学生们主要负责收集、鉴定和整理，以及数据收集、分析和解释，分享科学出版物的作者身份。不同兴趣和训练的学生和科学家之间的国际合作互动为解决从比较生物学到保护的重要新问题提供了独特的机会。

"Biodiversity of the Russian Far East" is a long-term international effortto document the diversity of plants and animals that occupy the landmassesthat surround and enclose the Sea of Okhotsk. This region is one of themost biologically diverse yet poorly known areas within the northern hemisphere. At the same time, compared to most other high-latitude regions ofcomparable size around the world, its biota is relatively undisturbed.For political reasons, but also because of its remoteness and severeclimate, all but a few Russian biologists have ignored this region.Information about the plants and animals of Okhotskia is largely unknownoutside of Russian and what little is available is published in Russianand thus relatively inaccessible. Each summer since 1994, three-dozenscientists, along with their students, from the University of Washington,the Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Sapporoand Hakodate campuses of Hokkaido University, Japan, spend eight weeksexploring remote islands and continental shorelines, utilizing land-basedfield stations or ocean-going Russian research vessels. While our primarycenter of focus has been the island biotas of the Kuril Archipelago, ourdestination over the next two years will be Sakhalin Island. Our goalsare to record the detailed species-level diversity of life in aquatic andterrestrial habitats of the Russian Far East as a prologue toinvestigations of biological patterns and processes, and as a basis forthe development of conservation strategies for this part of the world.Biological materials from lichens to liverworts, from spiders to frogs arebeing collected, curated, and made available to specialists around theworld. Dozens of species new to science are being named, described, andclassified, and numerous scientific and popular articles are beingpublished. In the area of conservation, our work is providing animportant foundation of information that will promote long-termenvironmental protection of these unique biotas. Finally, ourbiodiversity studies in the Russian Far East contribute significantly toeducation and to the development of human resources in science at theundergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate levels. Since 1994, theproject has provided financial support and direct involvement in field andlaboratory research for dozens of students. With major responsibility forcollecting, identification, and curation, as well as data collection,analysis, and interpretation, students share authorship on scientificpublications. International collaborative interaction between studentsand scientists of diverse interest and training provides uniqueopportunities to address important new questions ranging from comparativebiology to conservation.