Proposal for academic and educational usage of a 500,000-species database.

In the late 20th century, humanity destroyed natural environments for the sake of expanding agriculture to feed the exploding population or to supply the material goods of civilization.

It is estimated that 1,200,000 species are known on the earth. As increasing numbers of species are being lost to extinction, biologists should record all species as soon as possible.

Conventional specimens have been made by desiccating the samples. Therefore, it has been difficult to preserve them forever. But now is the era of information technology. So, we tried to efficiently classify species by magnifying digitized pictures.

We concretely introduce various species of plants and insects to you from the next issue.

TOMOYA AKIHAMA

Co-researching institutes

The Faculty of Agriculture, Meiji University; The Research Institute of Evolutionary Biology; The Faculty of Pharmacy, Kitazato University; The Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University.

Achievements

1. Used as Web page content by the schools of Okazaki City and Hamamatsu City.

2. Currently used as Web page content by 1,200 schools.

3. Exhibition at the World PC Expo2000 organized by Nikkei Business Publications, Inc.

Agri-Bio Institute of Genetic Resources

Tomoya AKIHAMA

The Square A-310,

1-1-5 Sekido, Tama City,

206-0011, Tokyo

Tel/Fax: +81-42-372-5365

E-mail: akihamat@d9.dion.ne.jp