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的动植物多样性。 该地区是北方生物多样性最丰富但知之甚少的地区之一。 与此同时，与世界上其他大部分面积相当的高纬度地区相比，鄂霍茨基的生物区系相对来说并没有受到干扰。出于政治原因，也因为它的偏远和气候恶劣，除了少数俄罗斯生物学家之外，几乎所有人都忽略了这一地区。关于鄂霍茨基的动植物的信息在俄语之外基本上是未知的，而且所能获得的信息也很少是用俄语发表的，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支和日本北海道大学札幌和函馆校区的30多名科学家，沿着他们的学生，利用陆基野外观测站或俄罗斯远洋考察船，花8周时间探索偏远岛屿和大陆海岸线。 虽然我们的主要焦点是千岛群岛的岛屿，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，以此作为研究生物模式和过程的序幕，并作为制定该地区保护战略的基础。从地衣到地钱，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。 许多新的科学物种正在被命名，描述和分类，许多科学和流行的文章正在出版。 在保护方面，我们的工作提供了一个重要的信息基础，将促进对这些独特生物的长期精神保护。 最后，我们在俄罗斯远东地区的生物多样性研究为本科生、研究生和研究生层次的教育和科学人力资源开发做出了重大贡献。 自1994年以来，该项目为数十名学生提供了财政支持，并直接参与了实地和实验室研究。 主要负责收集，鉴定和策展，以及数据收集，分析和解释，学生分享科学出版物的作者身份。 学生和不同兴趣和培训的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.