Welcome to AIIC, Asian Insect Information Center Databse, Based on Types and Normal Specimens Collected in Asia and the Pacific Area

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Anotogaster sieboldii (Selys, 1854)

As the population explosion continues in the world, we are much in need of increased provisions world wide. For the purpose of a stable supply of food or agricultural produce, it is necessary to control pests and plant diseases, and expand utilization of useful insects. In view of the current situation, however, we must admit that it is considerably late for the systematization and network construction of insect species information. Furthermore, the vast number of insect species, especially in tropical areas, has retarded the development of studies in applied entomology. The number of insect species, known presently in the world, about one million, represents only a small percentage of the actual number. The greater number of insect species will be found mainly from tropical areas in the future. In Japan, we constructed a database of “A Check List of Japanese Insects” (1989, 1990) containing 28,937 species. We estimate over 30,000 insect species from Japan at present. Therefore, for such a group containing a vast number of species, it is very important and necessary to identify species precisely, to accumulate and systematize species information, and to construct database networking for the effective use of this information. Although studies of insect biology and ecology in regard to species diversity have increased, much time is needed for identification of material and accumulation of information. In Asian countries, there is a need for a precise identification system and accumulation of information on pests for the development of agriculture.

In the present project we have started to construct a new AIIC database, the Asian Insect Information Center database. Its aim is the accumulation of insect data involving types and normal specimens deposited in universities, institutions and museums in Japan. The types and normal specimens have been collected from various localities by many overseas projects in Asia and the Pacific area, as well as inland Japan.

As a first step, we produced six insect database files for the AIIC database, ELKUType, BeeELKU, BeeFukuda, BeeCAsia, BeeFTadauchi, and COLSasaji, based on the Kyushu University Collection and have opened this database to the public via the Internet. We will open various files of other universities, institutions and museums to the public via the Internet in the near future. Each record consists of scientific names (family, genus and species), locality, collecting date, collector, etc, according to a format of the Darwin Core of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

The AIIC is supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(A) (Head Investigator: Osamu Tadauchi) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
The use of data in this database is free of charge if the objective is academic study or educational purposes.

Type specimen database

Specimen database

Link

Copyright Notice

  • AIIC Database Project Group (Head investigator: O. Tadauchi) and editor of each file hold the copyright on each file in the AIIC database.

Inquiries and Comments

Inquiries and Comments about AIIC Should be the Following E-mail Address.
Database AIIC (Osamu Tadauchi, Satoshi Kamitani)
Entomological Laboratory,
Faculty of Agriculture,
Kyushu University
Fukuoka, 812-8581
Japan
E-mail: tadauchi@kyudai.jp
E-mail: kamitani@agr.kyushu-u.ac.jp

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