Introduction

This Resource Guide supports the work of Dr. Jon Gelhaus and the Institute for Mongolian Biodiversity and Ecological Studies. Before moving forward in this guide we strongly suggest that you peruse the Institute's web site for a description of its work and for biographies of the participating scientists.

While Dr. Gelhaus has worked on crane flies and biodiversity his whole career, his involvement in Mongolia is more recent, developing out of a number of field trips by his colleagues at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia starting in 1994. They discovered a pristine region of the world largely untouched by modern industrial development, which offered unique scientific opportunities for the study of natural history, biodiversity, and bioassessment, as well as the challenge of helping the government of Mongolia and its peoples sensibly develop their economy while preserving their abundant natural resources and scenic beauty. This need has accelerated since the fall of the Soviet Union, the resulting withdrawl of Soviet foreign aid, as well as the recent discovery of gold deposits near Lake Hovsgol..

One of the focuses of Dr. Gelhaus's Mongolia research has been Lake Hovsgol, where he has led a three year sampling effort of the insects that inhabit the lake and its major tributaries. Dr. Gelhaus has identified 95 species of crane flies from the Lake Hovsgol area, 13 of which are species new to science and known only to Mongolia. Crane flies serve as useful bioindicators that can aid scientists in identifying the past, long-term, or intermittant presence of toxic substances and industrial pollutants.

Given the high degree of specialization in crane fly research, it is not surprising that the greater part of information sources in this area comes from journal articles and conference proceedings. There are web sites available that include information on crane flies along with other subject matter, but we did not find any web sites devoted solely to crane flies.

Entomology is primarilly divided between taxonomic entomology, the identification and classification of insects, and economic entomology, the applied areas relating to agriculture, pest management, and medicine. In general this distinction fits the pattern of resources found on the Internet concerning crane flies, where there is information coming from university and government agricultural programs, from local and regional natural history organizations, from museums, and from pure scientific research.