---

 

 Introduction to Biosphere and Natural Thematic Group

　　The Thematic Group includes 3 sub-teams of Fauna, Flora and Geology; and is led by Dr. Kwang-Tsao Shao of Academia Sinica. Dr. Shao is also head of the Fauna Sub-team whereas Dr. Chang-Fu Hsieh of National Taiwan University and Dr.  Kung-Suan Ho of the National Museum of Natural Science are in charge of the Flora and Geology Sub-teams, respectively. The fauna and flora collections focus on the indigenous animal and plant specimens and their databases; the geology collection covers Taiwan’s minerals, rocks, and animal as well as plant fossils. The Thematic Group will establish a search platform using organism name, full text, or GIS to retrieve species information such as checklist, specimen, image, basic description, distribution, and literature reference from various databases in Taiwan. Currently there are more than ten participating institutions which include Academia Sinica, National Taiwan University, National Museum of Natural Science, National Taiwan Museum, Council of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Fisheries Research Institute and Agricultural Research Institute, National Museum of Marine Biology & Aquarium, National Taiwan Ocean University, National Tsing Hua University, and National Sun Yat-sen University. A portion of the species data have already been connected to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).