Ecological Leads: Drugs from Reefs and Microbes in Fiji

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a planning grant to allow a consortium of marine ecologists, chemists, and policy/economic development faculty from Georgia Tech, marine chemists and microbiologists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and natural products chemistry, biodiversity conservation, and economic development faculty from the University of the South Pacific to cooperatively investigate how marine natural products from coral reef organisms in Fiji might be used for drug development, and to enhance local efforts focused on madne conservation and on economic development based on preservation of marine biodiversity. A secondary effort focuses on similar goals in local freshwater habitats. This "drugs from the sea" effort will apply ecological insights and leads from traditional Fijian healers to discover new biochemical diversity among the marine microbes, seaweeds, benthic invertebrates and freshwater macrophytes of Fiji. Coincident with these bioprospecting efforts will be complementary efforts focused on conservation and economic development. In developing countries, successful biodiversity conservation depends on full involvement in the planning process of the users of that biodiversity, thus, promoting the understanding among these users that they benefit from such conservation. At a local level this can be achieved through the development of community-based resource management plans and alternative income-generating activities based on the biodiversity being conserved. Such efforts are already beginning in Fiji, but these would be enhanced significantly by the efforts of this ICBG program. At a larger scale one of the key steps for conservation of genetic resources is developing spatially explicit models of their organization. This will allow systematic exploration for therapeutically useful compounds and enhance the ability to conserve and manage so as to prevent loss of biodiversity and loss of economic opportunities dependent upon biodiversity. Geographic information systems (GIS) will be used to develop a model of biodiversity on the coral reefs of Viti Levu, Fiji and to incorporate a database of environmental parameters. This will facilitate an assessment of the effects of locally managed marine protected areas, and serve as a baseline for early detection of reef degradation.