IBOY: Ongoing Projects

What goods and services does biodiversity provide?

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Project Title	Principal Investigator(s) and  Institutional Affiliation
Catalog of the wild relatives of the world's crops	V. Heywood, Centre for Plant Diversity and Systematics, School of Plant Sciences, University of Reading, UK (email)
FLUXNET : Metabolic diversity of terrestrial ecosystems	D. Baldocchi, University of California at Berkeley
Global study of soil biodiversity and decomposition	D. Bignell, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London (email)
Millennium Assessment	Walter Reid, World Resources Institute, Washington D.C. (website)

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Project descriptions:
 

Catalog of the wild relatives of the world's crops

"The wild relatives of the world's crops have evolved over a long period of time and have co-evolved with pests and diseases. They make enormously important contributions to plant improvement and genetic material from them is essential for the breeding of new and enhanced cultivars for the world's crops and thereby are essential for maintaining food security. They are a priority group for conservation, both in situ and ex situ, and sustainable use.

 

Information on the identity, distribution, and availability of germ plasm of the wild relatives of the world's crops is both seriously incomplete and uneven... It is proposed to develop an electronic database and information system that will bring together the scattered information on the names, distribution, ecology, conservation status, and breeding relationships of the world relatives of crops that is held nationally, regionally, and by international organizations."

--Vernon Heywood

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FLUXNET: The metabolic diversity of terrestrial ecosystems

This project will examine carbon dioxide and water fluxes from the vegetation component of terrestrial ecosystems, showing "...the highly diverse metabolic patterns of individual ecosystems in response to environmental factors....The specific objectives of the FLUXNET project are to:

• establish an infrastructure for guiding, collecting, synthesizing, and disseminating long term measurements of CO2, water, and energy exchange and environmental, solid, and plant canopy variables from a dispersed array of regional flux networks
• inter-calibrate flux measure systems among the networks
• provide value added data products using flux and environmental data acquired within the framework of this network of flux measurement stations
• use this information to test and validate ecosystem models and to draw generalizations relating to the control of carbon and energy fluxes by climate, vegetation, and substrate.

--David Baldocchi

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Global study of biodiversity and decomposition

The aim of this project is to conduct "a global investigation of the soil biodiversity involved in a vital ecosystem process (decomposition). Existing international research sites will be used. Biodiversity of selected soil taxa and decomposition of a variety of substrates will be assessed. The core objectives are:

• To assess the species biodiversity for one or more soil taxa at sites across the globe.
• To assess the rate of decomposition at these sites and biogeographical decomposition patterns
• To identify relationships between soil biodiversity and decomposition at local, regional, and global scales.

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Millennium Assessment (website)

"The Millennium Assessment is a proposed international integrated assessment of the conditions and future prospects of ecosystems. The process will be modeled along the lines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments of Climate Change. As currently envisioned, the Assessment would focus on three primary issues: a) current condition of the goods and services provided by ecosystems, b) future conditions or scenarios likely for those goods and services, c) response strategies. Goods and services include food, clean water, fisheries, carbon sequestration, flood control, and so forth. In addition, "biodiversity" is being treated both as a cross-cutting issue (since it underlies all of the other goods and services) and as a "service" in its own right.

 

The assessment would provide better information on the conditions and future prospects for ecosystem goods and services at a global scale and simultaneously strengthen the information and tools available at a local or regional scale for improving management actions. It would be closely linked to decision-making bodies, in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention on Desertification, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, and National Governments however it would be scientifically independent of these bodies with its findings and conclusions subject only to a scientific peer review process. The Assessment is expected to take 3-4 years beginning in 2000. Preliminary results ad protocols will be made public during 2001-2002. If successful it is expected that it would be repeated at 5 or 10 year intervals."

 

--Walter Reid

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