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Collaboration with Japan in Ecology
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IFP, which has a 30 years experience in studying botany and ecology of the tree species of the Western Ghats, is now involved in an international collaborative effort aiming to understand the phylogeny and diversity patterns of one of the most emblematic family of the tropical forests of South and South-East Asia, namely Dipterocarps.
The Research Institute of Evolutionary Biology (RIE at Tokyo, Japan), the Botany Department of the Ruhuna University (Sri Lanka) and IFP have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate with the objective to trace and understand the evolutionary patterns of the Dipterocarps species of the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka by means of molecular tracers.
A two-week common field mission has been carried out in December 2005 to identify, on the basis of IFP expertise, precise locations where the most rare or endangered Dipeterocarps species can be still observed in the Western Ghats. Beyond this first common investigation, a long lasting collaboration is envisaged on phylogenetic tracing of rain forest trees.