Investigations

Investigations in local biodiversity

“Biodiversity” has been a buss word in the past decade, globally and also in Hong Kong. The immediate question is how much we know about our local biodiversity. One of the foci remains to be how many different species of a particular group of animals is present in a certain area.

To obtain and share a better understanding in the wild species in Hong Kong, we conduct research based on routine survey in species-rich habitats, aims as below:

(1) Surveying and observing wildlife species present in the rural Hong Kong based on non-destructive approaches, providing an important baseline understanding to project participants.

(2) Maintain an online database on local biodiversity, supported by quantitative data resulted from routine and regular surveys, freely accessible by the general public.

(3) Monitor potential changes in species diversity, and deduce relevant origins.

Crustacean diversity in Hong Kong: Crabbie business…

As an attempt to understand the local biodiversity, a revised checklist of all species recorded from Hong Kong is targeted. Crab diversity in Hong Kong has a long history of investigation- ever since the exploration by William Stimpson back some 1.5 centuries ago.

Past literature on crab diversity in the region is screened through, and relevant records are retrieved and summarized. Hopefully the present investigation would provide a brief understanding in the species diversity of crabs of Hong Kong- after some enthusiastic zoologists and their respect for the beauty of species diversity some decades ago.

(1) Retrieved from existing literature, a renewed checklist for Hong Kong crab species would be compiled, comprising piece of baseline data for local biodiversity.

(2) Better understanding in diversity and species assemblage provides insights in changes in ecology of our seas, resulted from both human-induced and natural, for example potential climate shifts, in our seas.

(3) The results from our survey provide basis for scheduled publications: including pictorial illustrations and brief notes on respective ecology and biology.

For backgrounds and details of this project, please see the belowing.