Biodiversity Research Methods is the product of tremendous international and interdisciplinary cooperation in the IBOY-DIWPA program. IBOY-DIWPA's aims are to establish baseline inventories of biodiversity through an international network of study sites of different ecosystems. Developed from extensive preliminary research conducted for IBOY (International Biodiversity Observation Year) throughout the western Pacific and Asian regions, this manual includes detailed research methodologies for forests and freshwater and marine environments, with the aim of ensuring that the results of biodiversity research at different study sites are meaningfully comparable, thereby enhancing our understanding of biodiversity distribution and its role in the ecosystem.

About Editors and Authors

NAKASHIZUKA Toru is a Japanese scholar specializing in ecology. He is currently President of the Forest Research and Management Organization. After graduating from the Faculty of Science, Chiba University, he completed a Doctorate Program in Biology at the Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University in 1983. His previous positions include Researcher at the Forestry Research Institute, Senior Researcher at the International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, and later Professor at the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, before being appointed to his current position in 2006. His key research interests include plant ecology, forest ecology and biodiversity.