Biodiversity Surveys in the Southern Borderlands of the People's Republic of China
Description: This project represents an integrated effort to document the terrestrial
vertebrate biodiversity of the southern borderlands of China, one of the
least well explored regions worldwide. Specialists working with birds,
mammals, reptiles, and amphibians will staff the expeditions, accompanied by
experts with various parasite groups (fleas, flies, ticks, lice, nematodes,
cestodes, blood parasites, coccidia, etc.). The 5 expeditions will each
focus on a different sector of the borderlands region, including the border
areas with Laos, Vietnam, Burma, and northeastern India. Each specialist
will use tools for inventory that are the 'state of the art' in his or her
own field. The end result will be extensive series of specimens and other
new biological material for detailed study, as well as numerous scientific
publications documenting local vertebrate and parasite communities,
taxonomic insights, and new species. Parasite specimens will be collected
and stabilized, with a view towards long-term curation and eventual study.
Project data will be served to the broader scientific community with maximum
efficiency via Internet-based distributed database technology.
This project is near-unique in its broad-spectrum assessment of vertebrates
and many groups of parasites. Such a view of vertebrates and the full (or at
least a broad sample of the) diversity of their parasites is available from
few places on Earth, making for a new view into the true biological richness
of an area. In the case of the Chinese southern borderlands, not only will
many of the parasites be unknown to science, but even some or many of the
vertebrate hosts as well. Many new insights into the conservation of
biological diversity will come from such detailed views of the nature of
this diversity. This information will go beyond the quick-and-easy
vertebrate-based conservation priorities that currently dominate
conservation biology to provide a detailed view of the true dimensions of
biological diversity in a complex and little-known region.
Funder: National Science Foundation
Amount: $778,500
Funding type: grant
Funder scheme: Continuing Grant
Start date: 2004-08-15
End date: 2011-10-31
Investigators: A Townsend Peterson (lead), Dale Clayton, Rafe Brown, Burton Lim
Institutions: University of Kansas, University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
Subfield: Parasitology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
Funded outputs count: 14
Funder award ID: 0344430
OpenAlex ID: G716819829