Biodiversity Information Science and Standards :
Conference Abstract
|
Corresponding author: Nandita Barman (barmannandita283@gmail.com), Arjan Basu Roy (naturemates@gmail.com)
Received: 04 Sep 2023 | Published: 06 Sep 2023
© 2023 Vijay Barve, Nandita Barman, Arjan Basu Roy, Amol Patwardhan, Purab Chowdhury
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Barve V, Barman N, Basu Roy A, Patwardhan A, Chowdhury P (2023) DiversityIndia Meets: Pioneering citizen science through collaborative data mobilization. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 7: e112163. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.7.112163
|
|
DiversityIndia, founded in 2001, is an online community dedicated to promoting meaningful discussions and facilitating the exchange of diverse perspectives on lesser-known taxonomic groups, including butterflies, moths, dragonflies, spiders, and more. The core idea behind DiversityIndia is to establish a network of like-minded individuals who possess a deep passion for these subjects and actively participate in various aspects of biodiversity observation and research.
Initially, the taxonomic focus of DiversityIndia centered around butterflies, which led to the creation of the ButterflyIndia Yahoo email group. The group quickly gained recognition for its significant contributions in sharing valuable insights about butterflies, including information about their habitats and lesser-known species. ButterflyIndia also played a vital role in facilitating connections among scientists and researchers who were dedicated to studying Lepidoptera. As a result of its collaborative efforts, the group actively contributed to major book projects and web portals, further enhancing the knowledge and resources available to the butterfly research community. As time progressed, the group expanded its presence to include various social media platforms like Orkut, Facebook, Flickr and more, thereby expanding its influence and reach.
The realization of a significant need for empirical research on butterflies, requiring the involvement of both specialists and enthusiasts across diverse habitats, led to the first ButterflyIndia Meet in 2004 at Shendurney, Kerala. This pioneering concept garnered immense success, attracting participants from diverse regions of the country and backgrounds. Since then, several ButterflyIndia Meets have been organized, resulting in the documentation of numerous butterfly species. Building upon this success, DragonflyIndia and SpiderIndia were established with similar objectives and have successfully coordinated multiple gatherings (Fig.
One of the most notable DiversityIndia Meets occurred in April 2022, held in Sundarbans, West Bengal. This particular meet marked a significant milestone as the documented dataset, comprising information on all taxonomic groups observed during the event, was published through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (
In addition to the Sundarbans meet, ongoing efforts are currently underway to gather occurrence data from all the previous meetings conducted by DiversityIndia (Table
Year | Location | Focal Taxa | Dataset citation |
2004 | Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary, Kerala | Butterfly | |
2004 | Conservation Education Center, BNHS, Mumbai, Maharashtra | Butterfly | |
2005 | Aralam Wildlife Sanctuary, Kerala | Butterfly | |
2006 | Jairampur, Arunachal Pradesh | Butterfly |
|
2007 | Near Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh | Butterfly | |
2008 | Buxa Tiger Reserve and Samsing, West Bengal | Butterfly |
|
2008 | Chakrata, Uttarakhand | Butterfly | |
2009 | Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary, Goa | Butterfly | |
2010 | Namdapha Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh | Butterfly | |
2011 | South Garo hills, Meghalaya | Butterfly | |
2013 | Chilapata Forest, West Bengal | Butterfly | |
2014 | Nagpur, Maharashtra | Odonata | |
2015 | Thattekad, Kerala | Odonata | |
2016 | Gorumara National park, West Bengal | Odonata | |
2016 | Kolkata, West Bengal | Spider | |
2017 | Goa | Odonata | |
2018 | Hoollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam | Spider | |
2018 | Amba Ghat, Maharashtra | Spider | |
2019 | Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal | Butterfly | |
2019 | Castle Rock, Karnataka | Spider | |
2021 | Auroville, Tamil Nadu | Spider | |
2022 | Sundarbans, West Bengal | All flora and fauna |
|
2023 | Sam, Rajasthan | Spider | |
2023 | Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh | All flora and fauna |
|
According to the published records so far (
India, community science, GBIF, data mobilization
Nandita Barman
TDWG 2023
Nature Mates-Nature Club