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A team of scientists, including representatives of the National Geographic Explorer, is in Guyana to conduct studies in the Rupununi Savannah, Region Nine.According to the National Geographic, the team arrived in southern Guyana, near the border with Brazil, to conduct a rapid biological assessment of the Rupununi Savannah, a sprawling tropical grassland peppered with rock outcroppings and forested mountains.Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) with assistance from Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC), the expedition will spend the next couple weeks capturing snapshots of the immense biodiversity that occurs in this “poorly known” region.The group has about 35 people, including scientists, students from the University of Guyana and support staff – a cook, drivers and representatives from local indigenous peoples.The team will cover a broad array of biodiversity: large mammals, small mammals, fishes, amphibians and reptiles, birds, plants, aquatic insects, ants, water quality and indigenous resource use.Included in the team are Dr. Andrew Short, a National Geographic Explorer and an Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas. An entomologist by training, Short uses aquatic insects to study patterns of freshwater biodiversity in South America to inform both science and conservation.Meanwhile, WWF-Guianas said the team is collecting vital and potentially significant data on the biodiversity of the South Rupununi area, one of the last great wilderness areas on earth and home to over 1400 species of vertebrates, including many highly endangered globally.“The Southern Rupununi Biodiversity Assessment Team (BAT) comprises Guyanese and international scientists who have expertise in the detection and identification of plants, birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, insects and fish along with water quality and community resource uses. The high bio-diversity of the Rupununi results from the mixing of Amazonian and Guiana Shield fauna, high habitat diversity, and marked seasonal flooding.”The South Rupununi Savannah is home to over 5,000 indigenous people, primarily Wapishanas as distinct from the Machusis, their neighbours to the North, and location of cattle ranches for the last 150 years.Until recently, WWF said, the region has been protected by its relative isolation. However, that is changing rapidly, mainly due to improved overland access from Georgetown, a bridge across the Takutu River, which links Guyana to Brazil, and increasing interest in the region for gold mining, petroleum extraction, and large-scale agriculture. These developments are perceived to be already threatening the spectacular wildlife and natural habitats of the Rupununi, as well as traditional ways of life of the communities.Despite its reported high diversity and unique species composition, biological data from the southern part of the Rupununi are lacking, WWF said.As the pressure to rapidly develop the region increases, WWF Country Manager, Dr. Patrick Williams, says it is essential to have a good baseline of species and habitat data of the Southern Rupununi in order to make sound management and conservation decisions.