This Collection of the BDJ will report original results from recent biodiversity recording and survey work undertaken in Cuc Phuong National Park, northern Vietnam, under the framework of the VIETBIO project. The issue will consists of a “main” cover paper characterizing the study area and general project approach and activities, followed by individual papers for separate higher taxa as studied during the project, and some concluding summary and outlook. The main purpose is to make primary biodiversity records openly available including several new and interesting findings for this biodiversity-rich conservation area. All individual (taxonomic) contributions with their respective primary records are expected to provide useful baselines for further taxonomic, phylogenetic, ecological, and conservation-related studies on the respective taxa, and thus will be maintained as separate datasets including separate GUIDs also for further updating. 

VIETBIO ["Innovative approaches to biodiversity discovery and characterization in Vietnam"] is a bilateral German-Vietnamese research and capacity building project focused on the development and transfer of new methods and technology towards an integrated biodiversity discovery and monitoring system for Vietnam. Dedicated field training and testing of innovative methodologies was undertaken in Cuc Phuong National Park as part of and with support from the project, which led to the new biodiversity data and records to be made available in this issue.

VIETBIO is a collaboration between the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science (MfN), the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum, Free University of Berlin (BGBM), and the Vietnam National Museum of Nature (VNMN), the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR), the Southern Institute of Ecology (SIE), as well as the Institute of Tropical Biology (ITB), which all institutions under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST).

The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since 2017 (grant ID: 01 DP17052).

More information you can find on our website: https://bioseasia.org/vietbio.