| ATB 2002 | Strategic Planning at ATB | Tribute to H G Baker | Meetings 2002 & 2003 |
| Publications | Courses & Funding | Web Resources | Request for Information |
|
TROPICAL FORESTS: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE The Annual Meeting in Panam will feature contributed papers, posters, and 21 organized symposia. The conference web page at www.stri.org/atb2002/index.htm provides a listing of the program, and information on registration and travel. Field trips are scheduled before and after the meetings. We look forward to your participation! |
| "Hispaniola's lands are high; there are in it very many sierras and very lofty mountains. All are most beautiful, of a thousand shapes filled with trees of a thousand kinds and tall, so that they seem to touch the sky" Journal of Christopher Columbus, 1498. |
The resources and tools available to understand complex tropical ecosystems,
such as this 15th century description of a Caribbean Island flora, have
burgeoned. Research in tropical biology is at an exciting point in its
development as a field of scientific inquiry and as a key contributor to
understanding and solving pressing environmental problems. A growing pool of
information generated by scientists in tropical and non-tropical countries,
coupled with improved scientific facilities, is generating increasing
scientific and public interest. The speed of ecological degradation taking
place in tropical landscapes, and the realization of the direct links between
tropical and temperate ecosystems, have also added urgency to the need for a
better understanding of tropical ecosystems.
Despite a growing population of tropical biologists, there is a great deal more
to study, and perhaps as important, to organize. Until recently, many
researchers in tropical biology have worked individually or in small groups on
relatively short-term, single-discipline research projects with small amounts
of funding. A few exceptions to this pattern exist. For instance, the
Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) has served to facilitate and integrate
tropical research projects, but its focus has been almost entirely restricted
to the New World tropics. Reports of tropical research presented at recent
international meetings indicate that research priorities should be set, and
that larger-scale, longer-term research questions can and must be addressed.
Research teams must coalesce, database tools should link comparative data, and
more collaboration across international and hemispheric borders should be
encouraged.
Research over the last two decades has led to the realization that organisms, interactions, and processes that are studied by tropical researchers bear directly and indirectly on such issues as the maintenance of biodiversity, carbon cycling, the effects of global climate change, and sustainability of natural resources. These should be addressed in concerted ways by the tropical biology research community for three reasons: 1) scientific curiosity about fundamental biological questions; 2) provision of useful answers to issues of importance to other humans; and 3) increased access to funds that will promote our field and increase our capacity to learn more about tropical ecosystems. We recognize the opportunity for governments to meet treaty and other political commitments through this process, and this can unlock substantial funding through governmental agencies to which individual researchers do not generally have access.
As one response to the need to plan strategically for the future of tropical biological research, the Association for Tropical Biology (ATB) has embarked upon a three-year process to formally set research priorities in tropical biology. Two years ago, ATB initiated a three-year, step-wise process to establish research priorities in tropical biology and conservation. A broad, participatory process involving input from scientists and managers from around the world was proposed at the ATB meeting in Indiana in 2000. An intensive one-day workshop for the entire ATB membership was held in Bangalore, India, in July 2001, followed by a retreat of ATB Officers and Councilors in Washington, D.C. in February, 2002, to synthesize the ideas and to plan for future steps. (See Tropinet, March 2002). The Final Reports of those meetings are posted on the ATB website www.atbio.org .
As a major feature of the upcoming ATB Annual Meeting in Panam, the ATB will convene a one-day post-meeting workshop on August 3, 2002, to prioritize and articulate long-term research goals over the next 5, 20 and 100 years for the field of tropical biology and conservation. We invite all tropical biologists from around the globe to join us as we identify those fields of research that require heightened attention and discuss how tropical biological research can best address timely environmental concerns.
We will also bring in representatives from outside the ATB to help place our priorities into a useful framework. ATB believes that if tropical biologists can develop a unified research agenda, we have the opportunity to harness greater resources in terms of research funding, improved tropical scientific facilities, better data access and dissemination, and advanced education opportunities.
After the final workshop (at the ATB meeting in Aberdeen, U.K., July 2003) and retreat, we will produce a report in 2004 that makes a strong and unified case for increased support and funding from new and traditional sources for tropical biology and conservation.
We understand that commitments such as fieldwork and other meetings may prevent you from attending this Workshop. Even so, we welcome input from you suggestions, readings, or other relevant communications via electronic or regular mail (to Nadkarni). These contributions will be considered during the entire process.
The ATB organizers have been successful in obtaining a limited amount of funding from the National Science Foundation to bring participants to the workshop in Panam. These funds are restricted to U.S. citizens. Contact Dr. Kamal Bawa at the University of Massachusetts in Boston for information about this support (kamal.bawa@umb.edu). There is no registration fee for the workshop. Participants should make arrangements to stay an additional day in Panam after the ATB annual meeting to attend the workshop.
1)Review results from previous workshop and ATB retreat. Refine the goals for tropical biology research. Formulate scientific questions that should be addressed, including large-scale, long-term questions that require comparative approaches, harmonized methods, and potential manipulative experiments, as well as small-scale, individual-based research projects.
2)Initiate discussions about direct and indirect links to conservation and tropical resource use with representatives of conservation organizations and government agencies.
3)Determine and prioritize who are the end users of answers to these questions (e.g., universities, government agencies, general public). What content and in what forms do they need these answers? How can we best transfer technology and build local capacity to tropical regions?
4)Develop strategies to address our scientific and conservation questions. Discuss levels of funding, infrastructure, administrative framework, research sites, and database needs to implement our collective and individual research agendas.
5)Generate action items and time schedule, and assign tasks to individuals for future progress in this process.
Organizers :
Tropical Biology has lost a great practitioner, teacher and mentor. On July 2, 2001 Herbert George Baker died after a twenty-five year battle with Parkinson's disease. Born in Brighton, England on February 23, 1920, Herbert received his B.Sc. (1941) and Ph.D. (1945) from the University of London, studying breeding systems of British plants. After serving as Lecturer at the University of Leeds (1945-54) and Senior Lecturer at University College, Ghana (1954-57), Herbert joined the faculty of the University of California. A Professor of Botany, he received the University Citation upon his retirement in 1990; he remained as Emeritus for many more years.
Elected an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Tropical Biology (1982), Herbert also served as the President of the Botanical Society of America (1979), the Society for the Study of Evolution (1969), and the California Botanical Society (1964). He was a founding member of both the Organization for Tropical Studies and the Association for Tropical Biology. His studies of bat pollination in Africa were seminal in the field of pollination ecology, and over the years he collaborated with many famous tropical ecologists studying pollination and plant breeding systems. In 1968 he taught one of the first specialized OTS courses (with Bill Hatheway, Ed Klekowski and Gary Stiles), "Reproductive Biology in Tropical Plant Ecology" that trained many important practitioners of plant ecology and systematics. His long collaboration with Gordon Frankie (1968 - 1985), Paul Opler (1970 - 1974) and Bill Haber (1976 - 1982) provided much of the foundation upon which our understanding of plant/pollinator interactions in the New World tropics is built.
Herbert was interested in so many different topics, and published in so many different research areas, that every one of his 49 Ph.D. students or many associates would probably cite different contributions as his most important (e.g., Cox 1996). Work by the Bakers in pollination biology and nectar rewards of plants was the magnet that drew some of us to graduate work at Berkeley. How fascinating that nectar was more than just sugar and water (Baker and Baker 1973a, b)! And what was the significance of the various constituents (B & B 1976a, b, 1986, Baker 1977)? Does nectar composition correspond to the type of pollinator (Baker and Baker 1975; 1982, 1983), and is extrafloral nectar different than floral nectar (Baker, Opler, Baker 1978)? Their work answered these questions and generated many, many more.
Herbert married his Welsh sweetheart, Irene ("Cariad" he called her, born Feb 22, coincidentally) and took his bride to Leeds and his family to Ghana. Their daughter Ruth and grandson Michael (raised in Berkeley) were enormous sources of pride to the Bakers. Irene's death preceded Herbert's by more than ten years, and tracing Irene's collaborative role in Herbert's research by reviewing Herbert's nearly 200 publications shows the transition from her mention in the Acknowledgments to research collaborator. Irene was first Herbert's coauthor in 1971, and by the mid-70s she was a frequent coauthor in many studies of nectar, pollen, and floral rewards. By the time my cohorts and I knew them in the mid-70s, they were together constantly, and Irene was very involved with the graduate students projects as well as their joint research. They organized a weekly informal seminar, the "Friends of Ecology and Evolution," in which people from many departments gathered for presentations and lively discussions. These later evolved into monthly gatherings at their house for relaxed scientific discussion fueled by excellent food and drink (including homemade trifle and Welsh cakes). The Bakers hosted many Thanksgiving dinners for students and others far from home.
At the 1987 Botanical Society of America meetings in Columbus, Ohio, a symposium was held to honor Herbert's retirement from Berkeley. In this colloquium, G. Ledyard Stebbins and many of Herbert Baker's graduate students (first and second generation; that is his students and their students) presented work, much of which was published as a book (Bock and Linhart 1989). As a graduate advisor Herbert Baker was kind, positive and encouraging, and instilled in students the ability to find the value of all scientific contributions, while inspiring us to work very hard and to do the most thorough job possible on every task undertaken. He was a prized editor and reviewer because he took a constructive slant on everything he judged. Reflecting on letters I received from him over the years belies obligations undertaken far greater than any mortal could hope to complete. It is no wonder he was never able to finish his book on Plant Reproductive Biology. He had a truly international perspective, and welcomed visitors to the lab from many nations and disciplines. He had a dry sense of humor (Baker 1978, 1979), a passion for puns, an enthusiasm for track and field, and soccer, and a soft spot for chocolate (Cadbury Fruit and Nut). He was a dedicated and thorough teacher, offering incredible undergraduate courses such as Plants and Man (replete with an amazing collection of ethnobotanical items) and Plant Ecology (with field trips to breathtakingly beautiful locales). Herbert had an amazing ability to incorporate an abundance of findings and ideas into his courses. Each time his inspiring graduate course, Evolutionary Ecology, was offered, one-quarter to one-third of the material was new; and Herbert commonly called upon students to talk about their interesting research projects when the topic warranted their impromptu presentation. That course is where many of today's professors of entomology, botany, forestry and zoology got their start in research.
Herbert and Irene last visited Costa Rica during our cloud forest phenology and pollination research in 1979 (see photo), measuring nectar, collecting nectar and pollen, and even joining Cecile Lumer in her midnight watch for mouse pollinators to Blakea chlorantha on the Monteverde continental divide. A memorial for the Bakers was recently held at the University of California Botanical Garden, where a bench is dedicated in honor of Herbert and Irene Baker. I hope that all tropical biologists will visit this wonderful garden during their travels to California, and spend a moment reflecting on the dynamic duo of floral rewards, "Old Herbaceous" and "Cariad."
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Gordon Frankie (Entomology, University of California; E-mail: frankie@nature.berkeley.edu ), Ed Guerrant (Berry Botanical Garden; E-mail: edguerr@agora.rdrop.com ) and Gordon Uno (Botany, University of Oklahoma; E-mail: guno@ou.edu ) for invaluable input and editing.
References cited:
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS (ASN) MEETING, 11-14 July 2002, Banff, Alberta, Canada. For more information, see the website at www.amnat.org/banff/meeting.html .
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR SOCIETY 39th ANNUAL MEETING , 13-17 July 2002, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. For more information, go to the web site at: www.animalbehavior.org/ABS/Program, or contact the local hosts, Emlia Martins, emartins@bio.indiana.edu and Meredith West, mewest@indiana.edu
THE SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 2002 ANNUAL MEETING . 13-19 July 2002, Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent at Canterbury in UK. This meeting will be co-hosted by the British Ecological Society. For details, see www.ukc.ac.uk/anthropology/dice/scb2002.
ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR TROPICAL BIOLOGY. 28 July 2 August 2002, Panama City, Panam. The theme for this meeting is "Tropical Forests: Past, Present, and Future." This meeting is co-sponsored by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Center for Tropical Forest Science, and the Organization for Tropical Studies. For more information, see the web site at www.stri.org/atb2002
87th ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 5-9 August 2002, Tucson Convention Center, Tucson, Arizona. Co-sponsored by the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Ecological Restoration. The theme of the meeting is "Understanding and Restoring Ecosystems." Information can be found at www.esa.org/Tucson/
3rd CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ECOLOGICAL INFORMATICS (ISEI), 26-30 August 2002, Villa Grazioli Park Hotel, Grottaferrata (Rome), Italy. The registration form and more details about the conference are available at the conference web site, www.isei3.org
SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON GIS AND SPATIAL ANALYSIS IN FISHERIES AND AQUATIC SCIENCES. 3 September 6 September 2002, Brighton, UK. More details about the conference are available at www.esl.co.jp/Sympo/sympo11.htm
ASIAN WETLANDS: RESTORATION OF STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND VALUES: AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM. 8-13 September 2002, Nanjing, China. Yangtze River / Three Gorges field study tour: 14-18 September 2002. More information is available on the website, www.sws.org/china or contact: Ms. Pekepnie Simmons ( ksimmons@fs.fed.us ), 2730 Savannah Hwy, Charleston, SC 29414, Tel: (843) 727-4271 x103, Fax: (842) 7727-4152.
3rd NORTH AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGICAL CONFERENCE. 24 30 September 2002, New Orleans, Louisiana. Hosted by Tulane University and The Audubon Institute, the theme is "Birds on the Bayou: In the footsteps of Audubon." The Conference is being hosted by The American Ornithologists' Union, The Cooper Ornithological Society, The Raptor Research Foundation, the Society for Canadian Ornithologists/ Socit des Ornithologistes du Canada, The Society of Caribbean Ornithology, and Seccin Mexicana del Consejo Internacional para la Preservacin de las Aves (CIPAMEX). The circular and call for papers and posters for the meeting is available on the Conference homepage at www.tulane.edu/~naoc-02. For more information concerning the Conference, contact the co-organizers: Tom Sherry, tsherry@tulane.edu or Kimberly Smith, kgsmith@uark.edu
LAND USE, NATURE CONSERVATION, AND THE STABILITY OF RAINFOREST MARGINS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. 29 September - 3 October, 2002, Bogor, Indonesia. The symposium is organized in relation to a large scale research program on the "Stability of Rainforest Margins in Indonesia" (STORMA), jointly conducted by the Universities of Gttingen and Kassel and the Institut Pertanian Bogor and Universitas Tadulako (Indonesia). The research program is financed by the German Research Association (DFG). This program, which started in July 2000, focuses particularly on the margin areas of the Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi. More info on the research program can be found at www.storma.de. For information, contact SFB 552 - Symposium 2002, Institute for Geography, Goldschmidtstr. 5, D - 37077 Gttingen, Germany, E-mail: symp2002@gwdg.de.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NEOTROPICAL RAPTORS AND HARPY EAGLE SYMPOSIUM. 24 27 October 2002. Panama City, Panam. Sponsored by The Peregrine Fund and Fondo PeregrinoPanam. For further information contact: Neotropical Raptor Conference, The Peregrine Fund, 5668 West Flying Hawk Lane, Boise, ID 8370 USA or go to www.peregrinefund.org/nrconference.html.
BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS IN TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE. 30 September 3 October 2002, Halle, Germany. The workshop is funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF). Besides the invited speakers, there is room for some 15 young scientists working in the field. Unfortunately, ESF funding is for European applicants only. For more information please visit the workshop pages at www.hdg.ufz.de/index.php?en=1026
BRINGING BACK THE FORESTS: POLICIES AND PRACTICES FOR DEGRADED LANDS AND FORESTS. 7 10 October 2002, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The conference is sponsored by the Asia Pacific Association of Forestry Research Institutions (APAFRI), FAO, Forest Research Institute Malaysia and IUFRO. For more information, or to register, see the web site at www.apafri.upm.edu.my/reconf/index.html
VIII CONGRESO LATINOAMERICANO DE BOTANICA AND II CONGRESO COLOMBIANO DE BOTANICA. 13-18 October 2002, Centro de Convenciones, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. For more information, E-mail congrbot@ciencias.unal.edu.co
2003
THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY OF THE MONOCOTYLEDONS AND FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON GRASS SYSTEMATICS AND EVOLUTION. 30 March - 5 April 2003, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Claremont, CA. Topics will include ecology, biogeography, genetics, reproductive biology, morphology, anatomy, development, molecular biology, cytology, genomics, biochemistry, paleobotany, phylogenetics, classification and data integration. Sessions will be devoted to particular groups within monocots such as grasses and orchids. Monocots III will provide a rare opportunity for researchers to interact, share ideas and form collaborations. We invite proposals from those who wish to organize sessions. A call for contributed papers and posters will follow. The conference proceedings will be published. Springtime marks the flowering peak of the diverse California flora, and field trips are planned. Visit www.monocots3.org for conference details; or write Monocots III, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, 1500 North College Avenue, Claremont, California 91711-3157 U.S, E-mail: info@monocots3.org, Tel: (909) 625-8767 ext. 333, Fax: (909) 626-7670. Co-sponsors include the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Botanical Society of America, and the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.
ASSOCIATION FOR TROPICAL BIOLOGY (ATB)/BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY (BES) Joint Meeting and Symposium on "Biotic Interactions in the Tropics," 7-10 July 2003, University of Aberdeen, Scotland. The three-day meeting will comprise morning plenary sessions on Biotic Interactions and afternoon sessions for contributed papers. A fourth day will be dedicated to a workshop on Research Priorities in Tropical Biology. The organizers are currently soliciting suggestions for topics for symposia within the Biotic Interactions theme of the meeting or related to other topical themes within the realm of tropical biology. For more information, contact David Burslem, d.burslem@abdn.ac.uk, Michelle Pinard, m.a.pinard@abdn.ac.uk, or Mike Swaine, m.swaine@abdn.ac.uk.
The University of California Press is pleased to announce the publication of Tropical Forests and the Human Spirit: Journeys to the Brink of Hope by Roger D. Stone and Claudia D'Andrea. U. of California Press supplied this short commentary about the book: "For twenty years, we have watched TV specials on the destruction of tropical forests -- an acre a second lost, every second for twenty years. This beautifully written book takes you right to the middle of the current international debate about what to do about it. It pulls no punches and proposes its own provocative solution. It offers a perspective that cannot be ignored and an answer that needs to be tried." - James Gustave Speth, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science. Full information about the book is available at www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9261.html
SANDPIPER TECHNOLOGIES celebrates its fifth year of providing free use of its rental fleet to students conducting wildlife research. The deadline for submitting proposals for the 2003 spring/summer field season is 1 December 2002. For a list of available equipment and proposal requirements, go to the Sandpiper website at: www.Peeperpeople.com or contact Ann Christensen at Sandpiper Technologies, Inc., 535 W. Yosemite Ave., Manteca CA 95337.
GRADUATE COURSE IN RAINFOREST RESEARCH, 27 July - 5 August 2002, Sirena Biological Station, Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica. This course is designed to help graduate students develop research projects in a rainforest environment and learn the logistics of tropical field research. After a week of general orientation to local habitats and organisms, students focus on individual projects. Lectures on a variety of topics are presented by faculty, students and local researchers. The course web site is www.utexas.edu/courses/zoo3841. Contact L. Gilbert at lgilbert@mail.utexas.edu or Carla Guthrie at cguthrie@mail.utexas.edu for more information.
2002 INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON PROTECTED AREA MANAGEMENT, 8-28 August 2002, Missoula, MT USA. This seminar, jointly offered by the Universities of Montana, Idaho and Colorado State and the U.S. Forest Service International Programs office, is geared for senior level managers and policy makers working in protected areas. The program will examine and stimulate debate on management strategies, policies, and innovative institutional arrangements to address the conservation and use of the world's most special places. Visit www.fs.fed.us/global/is/ispam/welcome.htm for more information and application details.
18TH INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON FOREST AND NATURAL RESOURCES ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT. 25 August - 12 September 2002, in Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina and Washington, DC, USA. Jointly offered by Colorado State University and the U.S. Forest Service International Programs office, this seminar is designed for senior natural resource management professionals. The 19-day program focuses on strategies and methods to develop, manage and conserve natural resources for the sustained delivery of goods and services to meet the full range of human needs. For more information and application details go to www.fs.fed.us/global/is/isfam/welcome.htm or write to Ann Keith, College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1401, USA or via E-mail at ifs@cnr.colostate.edu. The cost is US$5,600.
XIV CURSO INTENSIVO INTERNACIONAL SOBRE MANEJO DIVERSIFICADO DE FLORESTAS NATURAIS TROPICAIS is being organized CATIE (Centro Agronmico Tropical de Investigacin y Enseanza) in Costa Rica, between 19 August 20 September 2002. Applications must be received by June 28. The course costs US$3000, which covers virtually all in-country expenses. Participants must pay, in addition, their own air travel to Costa Rica. More information is available from Fernando Carrera, M.Sc. at fcarrera@catie.ac.cr
GRADUATE COURSE "Biodiversity and global change: human impact in natural ecosystems of the Americas," 11-24 November 2002, Biological Field Station of Chmela, Institute of Biology-UNAM, Jalisco, Mxico. The course is open to Spanish-speaking graduate students, and is sponsored by the Red Latinoamrica de Botnica (www.ecologia.unam.mx/rlb) and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (www.iai.in) Fellowships for Latin-American students will be offered, which cover the costs of transportation from the country of origin, lodging costs, and all supplies for the course. The course will be conducted primarily in Spanish, but some of the invited professors will give their lectures in English. DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATION: 27 JULY 2002. The course is organized and administrated by Dr. Amy Austin, Facultad de Agronoma y IFEVA, Av. San Martn 4453, (C1417DSE) Buenos Aires, Argentina, austin@ifeva.edu.ar. For information on how to apply and the RBL fellowship, see the web page at www.ecologia.unam.mx/rlb or contact rlb@ecologia.unam.mx. Please send ALL documentation to: M. en C. Susana Maldonado Curti, Red Latinoamericana de Botnica, Instituto de Ecologa-UNAM, Apartado Postal 70-275, 04510 Mxico D.F., Mxico (for packets sent by courier, it is necessary to replace the 'Apartado Postal 70-275' for '3er. Circuito Exterior, Ciudad Universitaria, anexo al Jardn Botnico').
|
The ATB website has recently undergone an upgrade. Stephen Mulkey has done a tremendous job in constructing and maintaining the website for more than six years. During that time, the website has become increasingly important as an access point to ATB. Responsibility for the site has now been passed to a small group of interested members. The website has been revised by Chiranjeev Bedi, with the ATB Council providing input on the content. The new website (at www.atbio.org ) has a clean, intuitive design that should allow users to quickly find their way around. Links from the homepage relate to each of ATB's main functions and activities. These include Biotropica, Tropinet and information about membership. The site also provides up to date information about annual meetings. The new site does not currently provide access to the ATB membership list. This will be available in the future, after privacy issues have been resolved. Further improvements to the website are planned. To further enhance the appeal of the website, we are keen to include images of biological research in the tropics. Please send us any suitable high-quality, copyright-free images (the source of photos will be acknowledged). We also welcome suggestions for improvements to the ATB website, which should be sent to Martin Barker (m.barker@abdn.ac.uk) or Michelle Pinard (m.a.pinard@abdn.ac.uk). |
Arborvitae is the newsletter of the IUCN-WWF Forest Innovations project. Issues of the newsletter, which contain a variety of articles about forests world-wide, can be downloaded at www.iucn.org/themes/forests/outreach/. Various special reports are also available on the site, at www.iucn.org/themes/forests/index.html
Caterpillar Hostplants Database, www.nhm.ac.uk/entomology/hostplants/ This database from the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum, London contains information on worldwide caterpillar hostplants. It consolidates a large amount of data on plants that the 22,000 Lepidoptera species eat or otherwise interact with. Users can perform searches using scientific name of either the Lepidoptera or hostplant species, or perform a "drill-down" browse. Search results include the family, genus, and species names for both the Lepidoptera and hostplant; author of the primary literature; and additional information that includes location where the species is found and plant damage resulting from interaction.
Mycologia Online, www.mycologia.org/ The online version of this printed journal from the Mycological Society of America has recently been launched. A free trial period is scheduled for the remainder of 2002, after which access will be by subscription only. The current issue is available in full-text, along with archives going back to January 2002. Users can browse abstracts or full-text articles for current and archived issues, or search this and other journals by author, keyword, or citation.
Antbase: The Social Insects Web, http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/ This site (last mentioned in the 17 September 17 1997 Scout Report for Science & Engineering) is maintained by Donat Agosti, a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. Since its last review, much has changed, including an updated Integrated Taxonomic Information System; access to a full-text database of primary systematics publications; and a link to FORMIS 2001, a composite of several ant literature databases. Continually updated, the Social Insect Web (SIWeb) Working Space includes links that have not yet been integrated into the site, but may prove useful to those studying ants and other social insects.
Biosphere Reserve Integrated Monitoring Programme, www.unesco.org/mab/brim/index.htm This new Web site focuses on the Biosphere Reserve Integrated Monitoring (BRIM) Programme, part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme. "BRIM undertakes abiotic, biodiversity, socio-economic and integrated monitoring in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves." Data included within the Resources section includes flora and fauna monitoring from the MAB programme, as well as abiotic, biotic, and socio-economic data from other sources. Links to resources that describe monitoring methods and protocols are other valuable components of this site.
Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory, www.pprl.usu.edu/ This Web site from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture Research Service (ARS) focuses on poisonous plants and research currently being done on some of the problems caused by them. The main page gives some background on poisonous plants and the importance of the research, while the research page links to substantial information, including publication submissions and annual reports, about several ongoing ARS research projects. The site also contains a list of some poisonous plants in the western U.S., with links to detailed descriptions and photos of the plants and their potential effects.
Free, non-commercial websites on biological topics.
These websites have been
created by Charles H. Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Western Kentucky
University, Bowling Green,
charles.smith@wku.edu.
"Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies: To
1950,"
www.wku.edu/%7Esmithch/biogeog.
This service consists of a bibliography "enhanced" in several ways,
including the addition of links to Web-based biographical information on the
authors involved, and the full-text (as collected in several ways) of many of
the entries. It is meant to serve advanced students and faculty involved in
related studies and course work.
The Alfred Russel Wallace Page,
www.wku.edu/~smithch/index1.htm,
If you have information on any of the 8, I will appreciate if you send me a contact person (names, postal address, telephone, fax, email/website) or the title of his/her published/unpublished material and if possible, a hard copy of this document. This information will enable us build a database on species experts, compile a good detailed background document about the targeted species and subsequently produce a good species action plan.
ERIC SANDE, African Species Working Group Coordinator, NATUREUGANDA, PO Box 27034 Kampala Uganda, Tel: 25641540719 or 25677688552, Fax: 25641533528, E-mail: ericsande@hotmail.com or eanhs@imul.com .