Indobiosys – Indonesian Biodiversity Discovery and Information System

Indonesia is one of the world's countries with the highest biodiversity. The interplay of complex geological and climatic changes have resulted in a geographically and ecological diverse insular landscape that is home to a megadiverse fauna with a high number of endemic and ecologically highly specialized species. The extremely high number of species in Indonesia has been poorly studied for many groups, and many new species still await discovery and description. Likewise, there is a high potential of pharmaceutical and biotechnological research opportunities and the sustainable utilization of biodiversity as a natural resource. Indobiosys aims to combine a newly established system for the high-throughput discovery of Indonesian animals (sampling, sorting, identification of taxa) to a digital platform that provides biodiversity data and information extending beyond biologists to users from pharmacy and biotechnology on potential target groups of organisms for the discovery of new antiinfective compounds. Such target groups for functional screening approaches include e.g. animals that produce defending substances or that are highly adapted to their natural habitat (ecologically specialized) as in the case of various groups of insects.