Ecological Leads: Drugs from Reefs and Microbes in Fiji

描述（申请人提供）：这是一项规划补助金，允许来自格鲁吉亚理工学院的海洋生态学家、化学家和政策/经济发展学院、来自斯克里普斯海洋学研究所的海洋化学家和微生物学家以及天然产物化学、生物多样性保护、与南太平洋大学的经济发展系合作，调查海洋珊瑚礁生物的天然产品如何在斐济可用于药物开发，并加强地方努力，重点是保护海洋生物多样性和在保护海洋生物多样性的基础上发展经济。第二项努力侧重于在当地淡水栖息地实现类似的目标。这项“海洋药物”工作将运用生态学的见解，并从传统的斐济治疗者那里得到启发，以发现斐济海洋微生物、海藻、底栖无脊椎动物和淡水大型植物之间新的生物化学多样性。与这些生物勘探工作同时进行的将是侧重于养护和经济发展的补充性工作。在发展中国家，成功的生物多样性养护取决于生物多样性使用者充分参与规划进程，从而促进这些使用者了解他们从这种养护中受益。在地方一级，可以通过制定社区资源管理计划和在保护生物多样性的基础上开展其他创收活动来实现这一目标。这种努力已经在斐济开始，但这些努力将通过ICBG方案的努力得到大大加强。在更大的范围内，保护遗传资源的关键步骤之一是开发其组织的空间明确模型。这将有助于系统地探索治疗上有用的化合物，并提高养护和管理的能力，以防止生物多样性的丧失和依赖生物多样性的经济机会的丧失。将利用地理信息系统建立斐济维提岛珊瑚礁生物多样性模型，并纳入环境参数数据库。这将有助于评估当地管理的海洋保护区的影响，并作为早期发现珊瑚礁退化的基线。

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.