124 • Technologies To Maintain Biological Diversity 



tropical South America, data are rudimentary 

 and theories are very tentative. For others, such 

 as temperate North America, information is 

 well developed and theories have been exten- 

 sively tested. The unevenness is in part due to 

 data being collected for different purposes, 

 stored in different forms, and scattered among 

 different institutions. 



In general, both data and theories regarding 

 biological diversity are better for temperate than 

 for tropical biology; better for terrestrial than 

 for aquatic sites; better for birds, mammals, and 

 vascular plants than for the lower classes of 

 organisms; and better for the few major crop 

 and livestock species used in modern agricul- 

 ture than for the many species used in tradi- 

 tional agriculture. Taxonomic coverage is in- 

 creasing, but the pace is slow relative to the 

 quantity of unknown organisms. Each year 

 about 3 species of birds, 11 mammals, up to 

 100 fish, and dozens of amphibians and rep- 

 tiles are identified for the first time (22,57). In- 

 sects are the largest order of organisms, and 

 hundreds of species are newly identified an- 

 nually (57); nevertheless, estimates of the num- 

 ber of insect species not yet identified range 

 from 1 to 30 million (18). 



Information needed to maintain diversity is 

 even more limited on the ecosystem and com- 

 munity levels, partly because ecology is a youn- 

 ger discipline than taxonomy. Moreover, spe- 

 cies interactions within ecosystems are so 

 subtle that laborious, time-consuming field re- 

 search is necessary to understand them. For 

 example, the endangered red-cockaded wood- 

 pecker {Dendrocopus borealis) requires old- 

 growth longleaf and loblolly pine trees for nest- 

 ing. These pines persist in forest communities 

 where occasional fires destroy the seedlings of 

 other, more competitive species (5). Such fires 

 require accumulation of appropriate fuel to 

 carry the kinds of fires that favor the two pine 

 seedlings. Conservation of red-cockaded wood- 

 peckers, therefore, entails conserving appro- 

 priate species to generate the right kind of vege- 

 tation and litter on the forest floor. 



Databases 



Efforts to collect biological information have 

 increased during the last two decades as a re- 

 sult of growing awareness of the importance 

 of services provided by natural ecosystems and 

 of the need for better use and management of 

 natural resources. Biological data are now col- 

 lected and analyzed at the international, na- 

 tional, and local levels. Databases— the collec- 

 tions of data that are organized for further 

 analyses — can be used to make onsite diversity 

 maintenance efforts substantially more ef- 

 fective. 



International databases provide overviews 

 that can identify potential gaps, status, and 

 trends of biological diversity worldwide. The 

 main international organizations involved in 

 collecting biological data are the United Na- 

 tions Environment Programme (UNEP); the 

 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); 

 United Nations Educational, Scientific, and 

 Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the Conser- 

 vation Monitoring Center (CMC) of the Inter- 

 national Union for the Conservation of Nature 

 and Natural Resources (lUCN); the World Wild- 

 life Fund/Conservation Foundation; The Na- 

 ture Conservancy International (TNCI); and the 

 International Council for Bird Preservation (10). 

 (See ch. 10 for further discussion of interna- 

 tional databases.) 



The utility of international databases has been 

 limited because they are not readily available 

 to resource planners and other analysts who 

 might use them to advise development decision- 

 makers. To resolve this problem, the UNEP's 

 Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) 

 program is establishing a computerized Global 

 Resource Information Database (GRID). This 

 program will centralize access to numerous 

 environmental databases and will include train- 

 ing in data analysis for developing-country par- 

 ticipants. 



igei 



lity 



Biological data needed to plan management 

 of diversity and other natural resources at the 



