During the early development, the main activity of the Indonesian Center for Biodiversity and Biotechnology (ICBB) is to develop Indonesian Culture Collection of Microorganism and research study on several areas related to biodiversity and development of the biological resources in the area of antibiotic research, development of metagenomic library, enzymology, agriculture, environmental risk assessment of transgenic plants and development of environmental biotechnology.

Overview of Indonesia’s Biodiversity and Its Potency

Resource from  Atlas Keanekaragaman Hayati di Indonesia, created by Menteri Negara Lingkungan Hidup RI cooperation with Konphalindo ( Konsorsium Nasional untuk Pelestarian Hutan & Alam Indonesia)
Indonesia is recognized as a major center in the world for biodiversity. Ecological surveys and preliminary inventories indicate that the country belongs to countries with the highest level of endemism in the world. Though its only 1.3 percent coverage of the earth’s land surface, Indonesia endows 10 percent species of world’s flowering-plant, 12 percent species of world’s mammal, 16 percent species of all reptile and amphibian, 17 percent species of the world’s bird, and more than 25 percent of the world’s fish species.
Indonesia’s forests are one of the top rank in the world for species richness. The forests harbor the world’s greatest diversity of palms, more than 400 species of economically important dipterocarps, and about 25,000 species of flowering plants. Indonesia is ranked first in the world for its richness in mammal species. In Indonesia live 646 species of mammals, 36 percent of them are endemic. Indonesia ranks first also for swallowtail butterflies, total 121 species were identified already and 44 percent is endemic, ranks third for reptiles which are more than 600 species, fourth for birds (1603 species, 28 percent endemic), fifth for amphibians (270 species), and seventh for flowering plants.
The information above is far from enough, they are only small portion of all higher-level plants and animals which can be found in Indonesia. Total number of species is estimated at more than 1,000,000, most of them remain unknown to science. Lower-level plants (microorganisms) and lower-level animals have almost not been studied yet. In addition, the greatest portion of Indonesia’s biodiversity has never been assessed with respect to its economic value or conservation status. The diversity of many important plant and animal groups was studied in only a preliminary way. Diversity of microorganism, the most industrially important one, is almost unknown. More than 99,5 % of expected species have not been described yet. The effort to study microbial community is also hampered by the fact that very few bacteria, especially from the tropical region, can be grown on conventional media. Only 0.001-1 percent of bacteria from some ecosystem in Indonesia is cultivable, mostly belongs to VNB (viable but non cultivable bacteria).
Indonesian government has created 179 protected areas and nature reserves since 30 years ago, i.e. 29 in Sumatra, 40 in Java and Bali, 16 in Kalimantan, 23 in Sulawesi, 31 in Nusa Tenggara, 16 in Maluku and 18 in Irian Jaya. Even though this effort can protect some endangered species from extinction, the degradation of environment and biodiversity in Indonesia increased rapidly in recent years.
We are witness to ecological catastrophe in the last few years (1991-1997). Millions of hectares of tropical rainforest was destroyed by fires. Deterioration of biological resources was also accelerated by extensive cultivation of perennial plants (plantations), agricultural development projects, development of new settlement and industrial areas, deforestation, poverty, and in the recent years, economic crisis and an unstable political situation. The loss of biological diversity represents one of the most noticeable of natural resource destruction. Although many local and international agencies are signaling the necessary effort to determine and counter this process, there exist few clear examples of how to achieve this goal.
Government efforts to manage, conserve and protect some areas can not guarantee biodiversity conservation into perpetuity. The biological diversity found within and outside Conservation Areas must be studied, searched, and known. Through this way, the loss of biodiversity can be quantified, calculated and predicted. Action programs to counter the deterioration process can be done more effectively.
Biodiversity is more than just the sum of species numbers, it encompasses the variety, variability and uniqueness of genes, species and the ecosystems where they occur. But a more important thing for us is to use this biological sources properly and in sustainable ways. Biodiversity will reward society by continuing to provide its tremendous benefit to our present and future generation. Indonesian society will obtain greater benefits and greater control of its biological richness if we can increase our capacity to add value and information to Indonesia’s biodiversity. These goals can be achieved by systematic search of important plant and animal species, microorganisms, genes, enzymes, or other bioactive products that have potential economic value. Indonesia’s biological diversity has untapped biotechnology potential for agroindustry, pharmaceutical industry, environmental technology, mining industry and in the future also biochips, biosensor and microelectronic industry. Development of biological resource base technology stands as the industry of the 21st century and Indonesia has a unique opportunity to lead the process.

Researches, developments and projects is presented in the “Research Experiences and Projects” that will be updated regularly. Updated publications is showed in “Scientific Publications/Papers/Reports”.

Development of Indonesian Culture Collection of Microorganisms

With almost 10.000 isolates in the ICBB-Culture Collection, it became the largest collection of microorganisms in Indonesia. 2926 of the isolates have been studied further and 1188 strains have  been already identified by mean conventional as well as 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing as follows:
• 53 identified yeast belongs to the genus Candida, Aureobasidium, Cryptococcus, Pseudozyma, Trichospora, Hyphophicia, and Rhodotorula.
• Around 500 identified bacteria i.e. Bacillus sp., Bacillus cereus, Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus fusiformis, Thiobacillus thiooxidans, Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, Brevibacillus choshinensis, Desulvovibrio sp., Desulvotomaculum sp., Paenibacillus chondroitinus, Micromonospora floridensis, Rhodococcus erhytropholis, and Klebsiella planticola.
• 6000 strains of Streptomyces and other member of Actinomycetes.
• Some fungi.

Note:

Picture of Rafflesia Arnoldii taken from  Atlas Keanekaragaman Hayati di Indonesia, created by Menteri Negara Lingkungan Hidup RI cooperation with Konphalindo ( Konsorsium Nasional untuk Pelestarian Hutan & Alam Indonesia)

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