On May 21, Catalogue of Life China 2016 Annual Checklist briefing was held in Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), hosted by Biodiversity Committee, CAS (BC-CAS). The briefing was chaired by Prof. Keping Ma, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of BC-CAS. Mr. Ziyuan Duan, Deputy Director General of Bureau of Science & Technology for Development, CAS,
Ms. Lei Cai, Division Chief of Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation, Ministry of Environment Protection (MEP), Academician Deyuan Hong and 110 other participants from 19 institutes or universities attended.
Mr. Ziyuan Duan introduced CAS’s progress in biodiversity research and conservation. He reviewed the cooperation between CAS and MEP. Catalogue of Life China 2016 Annual Checklist was a fundamental jointly work in biodiversity area. We hope the two sides canconduct more related actions to promote biodiversity research and conservation together.
Ms. Lei Cai said that, recently the government paid highattention to biodiversity conservation, such as issuing Giant Projects on Biodiversity Conservation. The checklist was the integration and summarizing of all known species in China. It provided significant basis for biodiversity conservation, making the conservation actions more targeted and scientific. She also expressed her grateful and respect to taxonomy researchers for their silent, steady work and contribution.
As a representative for taxonomy experts, Academician Deyuan Hong shared his sentiments. He reviewed the research history of plant taxonomy, and expressed there was still a long way to go before we could truly identify all species in China. The checklist is an achievement of many experts at the moment. In the long term, taxonomy will play a significant role in biology. However, under the current evaluation system, there are many challenges and difficulties for taxonomy research, such as lack of funds, human resources. More attention and value could be attached.
Prof. Liqiang Ji, the Deputy Secretary General of BC-CAS detailed the content of Catalogue of Life China 2016 Annual Checklist. Consistent with the Species 2000 data standard, each species page includes the scientific name, synonyms, common name, literature, classification system, distribution and Chinese name with Pinyin. There are 86575 species & infraspecific taxa in the checklist. He also introduced the major updating in Animalia,Plantae and Fungi, and expressed his gratitude of all experts and institutions which contribute to the checklist, as it was a jointly work of many related subjects.
Prof. Haining Qin, the Deputy Secretary General of BC-CAS, introduced the background, organization, content, and progress of World Flora Online (WFO). WFO was established in response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), aimed to develop a widely accessible working list of known plant species as a step towards a complete world flora. Prof. Qin believed that, it was an important opportunity for Chinese plant scientist to join in WFO: on one side, WFO needed China’s participation, due to our outstanding online plant information systems and the promotion in Asia; on the other side, we could learn from WFO and conduct propaganda to the world. He also encouraged Chinese scientists to actively be involved in WFO.
Prof. Keping Ma briefly introduced the work of BC-CAS, mainly including biodiversity informatics, such as Catalogue of China in both CD-ROM and print version; biodiversity monitoring, such as Chinese Forest Biodiversity Monitoring Network (CForBio) and China Biodiversity Observation and Research Network (Sino BON); and Asia Biodiversity Conservation and Database Network (ABCDNet). Meanwhile, BC-CAS and other related departments jointly promote biodiversity academic communication and training, for example a series of national conferences. For many years, BC-CAS had support from Bureau of Science & Technology for Development, CAS, and Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation, MEP. We look forward to more attentions attached on BC-CAS, and biodiversity research and conservation.
Species 2000 China Node
Species 2000 is a non-profit 'federation' of database organizations of global species, whose goal is to create a uniform and validated index to the world's known species. Species 2000 China Node is a regional hub of Species 2000 program, and was launched in 2006. Biodiversity Committee, Chinese Academy of Sciences (BC-CAS), cooperated with other partner organizations, supports and supervises the establishment of the Species 2000 China Node. The goal of Species 2000 China Node project is to provide a validated checklist of all species distributed in China. Since 2008, the project compiles and publishes electronic version of the annual checklist in the Catalogue of Life China. The annual checklist is available at (www.sp2000.cn) and CD-ROM free for users around the world.
