Microbial diversity: Ex situ conservation of Indonesian microorganisms

This paper discusses the role of microbial resource collections in the ex situ conservation of microbial diversity and, in particular, the activities of a recently completed Darwin Initiative project to facilitate collection, identification and exploitation of Indonesian microbial diversity. This helped revitalize the collection of the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuea Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of Sciences), LIPI, Research and Development Centre for biology, Bogor, Indonesia. It is suggested that a focus on microorganisms beneficial to man is essential to enable ex situ collections to be a useful tool in the conservation and sustainable utilization of microbial diversity. This task is enormous and far beyond the capabilities of one collection and its achievement will necessitate a network of collections.