[Biology][Wildlife Conservation] Eight Years on Completing Biota Taiwanica

[Biology][Wildlife Conservation] Eight Years on Completing Biota Taiwanica (Chinese Version)

BCC-News (2009/07/29) NSC invited about 160 biologists to survey the species in Taiwan, completing profiles of about twelve thousands species and publishing twenty volumes of Biota Taiwanica after eight years of effort. However, the number of the species known in Taiwan has been more than fifty thousands. Still plenty of effort has to be made.

The Tropic of Cancer passes Taiwan, so Taiwan is in both subtropics and tropics. Yushan with more than three-thousand-meter height and Hualian offshore ocean bottom with more than six-thousand-meter depth, make the elevation drop in Taiwan about ten thousand meters, which becomes a fine cradle of tremendous biodiversity. The presently known species in Taiwan are more than fifty thousand kinds. According to the United States National Research Council's estimation, Taiwan at least is in possession of 2 to 2.5 hundred thousand kinds of living creatures, 2.5 % of global species, one third to one-fourth of which are even endemic species in Taiwan. These creatures and the genes are Taiwan's precious heritage.

und.com (2009/07/30) repeats Professor Jenn-Che WANG, Department of Life Science-National Taiwan Normal University, that Biota Taiwanica depicts the species' characters, distribution, genetic information, existing numbers, literature records etc., far different from a mere list of species' information. It is actually an “encyclopedia of bio-species”!

Related websites:
Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility Website
On-line Biota Taiwanica

Reference:
BCC-News 2009/07/29 (Chinese)
udn.com 2009/07/30 (Chinese)