Biology, Institute of

of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, an institute for the development of the theoretical basis for the rational utilization, reclamation, and enrichment of the biological resources of Siberia. Located in Novosibirsk. It was organized in 1944 as part of the Western Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR as the Institute of Medicine and Biology and renamed the Institute of Biology in 1955. In 1958 the institute became part of the newly organized Siberian division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The institute has laboratories of zoology, microbiology and virology of insects, forestry, and cytology and apomixis of plants. From its earliest years the institute was engaged in the widespread investigation of the flora, especially medicinal plants and fauna of Siberia. Since 1950 studies have been conducted for the purpose of working out the theoretical foundations for conservation and population increase of food and game animals, for cultivation of virgin and fallow lands, for improvement of meadows, for the development of field-protecting timber belts, and for regional classification of foci of natural infection. Since 1959 studies have been conducted on animal ecology, on the war against bloodsucking flies and warble flies, on developing biological methods in the war against forest and agricultural pests, on controlling the dynamics of population number in certain species of zoocenoses, on clarifying the role of migratory birds in the spread of arboviruses, and on the cytology and apomixis of plants. The institute has resident and corresponding research students. Since 1956 it has been publishing Trudy biologicheskogo instituta (Acta of the Biological Institute). Publications include Novye i maloizvestnye vidy fauny Sibiri (New and Little-known Species of Fauna of Siberia), which has been published since 1965, and individual thematic collections and monographs. The Central Siberian Botanical Garden (in 1955) and the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry of the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (in 1968) were separated from the Institute of Biology.