Introduction

There are various ecosystems, such as forests, grasslands, deserts, lakes and the ocean, in climate regions from arctic through temperate to tropic on the earth, with a biodiversity peculiar to each region. Since many factors affect on fluctuation and maintenance of ecosystems, it is useful to elucidate the long-term fluctuation of ecosystems and its mechanisms from intensive studies held at a certain site for a long period of time. Also biodiversity and ecosystem research require, not only observations of organisms, but also information of other parameters such as physical, chemical, geological characteristics, as well as and human impacts on the environment of the site. With large-scale ecosystem manipulations to separate factors, we can understand the ecosystem in terms of interactions between organisms and environments. Foundation of field stations, where researchers from various academic fields gather, will fulfill such. Furthermore, establishing a network between researches from various ecosystems allow us to discuss biodiversity and ecosystem function in a global scale. For this purpose, we stress the importance that the academic level of field research is expected to make rapid progress by establishment of field stations.

One of the purposes of biodiversity and ecosystem research is to clarify the pattern of diversity and the mechanisms that create and maintain the diversity in an ecosystem. In a system having the highest diversity such as tropical forest, characteristics of most species are unclear, and therefore it is difficult to construct the mechanisms for maintenance of diversity from a bottom up approach, that is composed by the population characteristics of each species and its interactions. Furthermore, it is also difficult to detect the most effective pathway when a field manipulation is conducted in a whole community, where the interaction is so complicated. Tomakomai station is located at lowland in cool temperate zone, and the biodiversity of this site is lower than that of tropical forests. Therefore, making the most use of the low biodiversity, the purpose of Tomakomai station are to elucidate 1) the quantity of biodiversity for various organisms that we can see, 2) the maintenance mechanisms of diversity and abundance of forest community by a bottom up approach that composed by the population characteristics of each species and its interactions, 3) an ecosystem function with diversity of consumers and decomposers along a gradient of producer diversity, 4) maintenance mechanisms of biodiversity by installing the large scale and ecosystem level manipulations, under a uniform environment created by catastrophic disturbances.

The role of the field station is not limited to ecological researches. Tomakomai station is open to citizens for hiking, nature observation and recreation, and a botanical garden and artificial marsh provide educational role in ecology at the region.

Tsutom Hiura