 The
International Kuril Island Project is an international collaboration of
American, Russian, and Japanese scientists to survey the plants, insects,
spiders, freshwater and terrestrial mollusks, freshwater fishes, amphibians,
and reptiles of the Kuril Archipelago. Participating
institutions include the University of Washington
(Fish Collection,
Burke Museum,
and Herbarium), the Russian Academy of Sciences, Far East Branch, and
Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan.
IKIP was first
conceived in September 1991 while Theodore
W. Pietsch (University of Washington) was on a Japanese Society for the
Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship to work with colleagues at Hokkaido
University, Hokkaido, Japan. Subsequent discussions and planning with both
Russian and Japanese colleagues eventually led in October 1993 to the
submission of a proposal to the
National Science Foundation
(NSF), Division of
Environmental Biology, Biotic Surveys and Inventories Program. This
proposal resulted in a one year "proof of concept" award, (DEB-9400821,
15 July 1994--30 June 1995) and a "trial" expedition to the southern Kuril
Islands in the summer of 1994. The 1994
expedition was successful, and that November a proposal to survey the major islands of
the entire Kuril Archipelago over five years was submitted to NSF, along
with parallel submissions by Russian and Japanese colleagues to the Russian
Academy of Sciences and JSPS, respectively. The proposals submitted in all
three countries were successful, but NSF funds (DEB-9505031) will provide
primary support for the project over its lifetime, 1 May 1995--30 April 2000.
The primary purpose of
the IKIP web site is to provide easy access to project results and
databases, both for participants and other interested scientists. We have
also included contact information for all
project participants. Graphical button
bars are provided at the top and bottom of each page to aid navigation to
each of the major sections of the IKIP site. For those using browsers
without graphics support, the links provided by the button bars are:
Proposal,
Island Info,
Results,
Gallery, and
Okhotskia.
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