Biodiversity of the Russian Far East: Sakhalin Island

“俄罗斯远东的生物多样性”是一项长期的国际努力，旨在记录占据鄂霍次克海周围和包围陆地的动植物的多样性。这一地区是北半球生物多样性最丰富但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，但也因为它偏远和严重的限制，除了少数俄罗斯生物学家之外，几乎所有的俄罗斯生物学家都忽略了这个地区。关于鄂霍茨基动植物的信息在俄语以外基本上是未知的，现有的很少的信息是用俄语出版的，因此相对难以获取。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以及日本北海道大学札幌校区和函馆校区的30多名科学家和他们的学生将利用陆基实地考察站或远洋俄罗斯考察船，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一直是千岛群岛的岛屿生物群，但我们未来两年的目的地将是库页岛。我们的目标是记录俄罗斯远东水生和陆地生境中详细的物种水平的生命多样性，作为研究生物模式和过程的序幕，并作为制定这一地区保护战略的基础。正在收集、整理从地衣到地衣、从蜘蛛到青蛙的生物材料，并向世界各地的专家提供。数十个新物种正在被命名、描述和分类，大量的科学和流行文章正在发表。在保护方面，我们的工作正在为促进这些独特的生物群的长期环境保护提供重要的信息基础。最后，我们在俄罗斯远东地区的生物多样性研究对本科生、研究生和研究生层面的科学教育和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。学生主要负责收集、鉴定和整理数据，以及收集、分析和解释数据，共享科学出版物的作者身份。具有不同兴趣和培训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.