The Kyrgyz Republic is a small but geographically diverse country (198,500 km2), dominated
by mountains, with over 90% of the country above 1000m altitude. Despite its small size, the Kyrgyz Republic has a relatively high species-richness; possessing nearly 1.5% of all known species in just 0.13% of the world’s land mass and a relatively high level of endemism (of 4,500 higher plant species growing in Kyrgyzstan over 200 are endemic). Because of the geographical and political isolation of the country, chemodiversity of Kyrgyz plants, fungi and prokaryotes remains largely unexplored along with the therapeutic compounds present in the Kyrgyz biota. Recently declines in many species have become evident, and a number of rare and valuable ecosystems have nearly disappeared. The diversity of species existing in the Kyrgyz Republic provides an important genetic resource for the country that has significant economic value particularly in the area of human health. The Kyrgyzstan Associate Program (KAP) will work closely with the rest of the ICBG program to discover economically valuable therapeutic uses for the naturally derived compunds originating from the Kyrgyz biota.
The main task of the KAP is to collect, catalogue and preserve
the plant, fungal and prokaryotic biodiversity of Kyrgyzstan and to prepare samples of this biodiversity for the screening, isolation and development parts of the ICBG Central Asia Program. Taxonomists from Kyrgyzstan will identify and voucher the plant collections and will assure that chemodiversity samples (extracts) are properly prepared, catalogued and stored. The ICBG sample storage facilities established in the Kyrgyz Agricultural Research Institute will be used as a depository for the collected samples. Voucher specimens of plants, fungi, and (when appropriate) prokaryotic microorganisms will be preserved in a manner that allows subsequent identification and scientific analysis of as many preserved specimens as possible. In addition, Kyrgyz scientists will be part of the biodiversity and bioinformatics training components.
