Historical collections of biological specimens are potentially rich sources of data for contemporary researchers. However, many technical issues have to be addressed in order to make these collections widely available. This paper reports on a qualitative study of historical and current data practices at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, which is seeking wider understanding of the h...

Many biodiversity researchers have responded to the financial constraints faced by policy makers to develop models based upon the “Noah’s Ark” metaphor, implying that society can save only a limited amount of biodiversity. Unfortunately, as Herman Daly (Land Economics, 1991) pointed out, such microeconomic rules can allow an ark to sink albeit in some optimal fashion. So, I step back to look at...

Glossary Convention on biological diversity The Convention was first enacted in June 1992, has been signed by many countries, and its objectives are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appr...

Anthropogenic activities have accelerated the rate of global loss of biodiversity, making it more important than ever to understand the structure of biodiversity hotspots. One current focus is the relationship between species richness and aboveground biomass (AGB) in a variety of ecosystems. Nonetheless, species diversity, evenness, rarity, or dominance represent other critical attributes of bi...

Overview. The aim of the paper is to evaluates how adequately biodiversity has been assessed in reports on Environmental Impact Assessments. The analysis is based the reports available from a number of EIAs, including scoping reports, specialist studies and Environmental Impact Reports. References to biodiversity, and biodiversity related issues, were classified according to whether they addres...

Biodiversity is often ill-defined and subjectively surveyed, resulting in inefficient and ambiguous estimates. Strengths and deficiencies of prevailing survey techniques are appraised through a review of selected literature. Analogies with forest inventory are used to suggest options for more efficient and rigorous biodiversity assessment. Techniques such as variable-probability and model-based...

Biodiversity informatics (BDI) information is both highly localized and highly distributed. The temporal and spatial contexts of data collection events are generally of primary importance in BDI studies, and most studies are focused around specific localities. At the same time, data are collected by many groups working independently, but often at the same sites, leading to a distribution of dat...

Contents 1. Introduction 2. Technical aspects of agricultural biotechnology at the interface with agrobiodiversity 2.1 In vitro technologies 2.2 Genetic modification and the sourcing of genes 2.3 Molecular marker technology 2.4 Genomics and beyond 2.5 The context of agricultural biotechnology 3. Agro-biodiversity as a source for biotechnological applications 4. Biotechnological tools in genetic...

The Chinese Seed Systems Project started in January 2000 in Southwest China. It is co-funded by IDRC (International Development Research Centre, Canada) and Ford Foundation, and is carried out by the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) of the China Academy of Science (CAS), in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and with academic supervisio...

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