Citizen science is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur scientists. Citizen science is sometimes described as "public participation in scientific research", participatory monitoring, and participatory action research whose outcomes are often advancements in scientific research by improving the scientific community's capacity, as well as increasing the public's understanding of science.
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, voting, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digital platforms to attract and divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result, however, it may not always be an online activity and there are various historical examples of crowdsourcing. The word crowdsourcing is a portmanteau of "crowd" and "outsourcing". In contrast to outsourcing, crowdsourcing usually involves less-specific, more public groups.
Biodiversity informatics is the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information, such as taxonomy, biogeography or ecology. Modern computer techniques can yield new ways to view and analyze existing information, as well as predict future situations. Biodiversity informatics is a term that was only coined around 1992 but with rapidly increasing data sets has become useful in numerous studies and applications, such as the construction of taxonomic databases or geographic information systems. Biodiversity informatics contrasts with "bioinformatics", which is often used synonymously with the computerized handling of data in the specialized area of molecular biology.
The Catalogue of Life is an online database that provides an index of known species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. It was created in 2001 as a partnership between the global Species 2000 and the American Integrated Taxonomic Information System. The Catalogue interface is available in twelve languages and is used by research scientists, citizen scientists, educators, and policy makers. The Catalogue is also used by the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Barcode of Life Data System, Encyclopedia of Life, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. The Catalogue currently compiles data from 168 peer-reviewed taxonomic databases that are maintained by specialist institutions around the world. As of June 2021, the Catalogue lists 1,997,284 of the world's 2.2m extant species known to taxonomists on the planet at present time.
The National Centre for Text Mining (NaCTeM) is a publicly funded text mining (TM) centre. It was established to provide support, advice, and information on TM technologies and to disseminate information from the larger TM community, while also providing tailored services and tools in response to the requirements of the United Kingdom academic community.
eBird is an online database of bird observations providing scientists, researchers and amateur naturalists with real-time data about bird distribution and abundance. Originally restricted to sightings from the Western Hemisphere, the project expanded to include New Zealand in 2008, and again expanded to cover the whole world in June 2010. eBird has been described as an ambitious example of enlisting amateurs to gather data on biodiversity for use in science.
SABAP2 is the acronym for the Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2, which is the follow-up to the Southern African Bird Atlas Project. The first atlas project took place from 1987 to 1991. The current project was a joint venture between the Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town, BirdLife South Africa, and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). Following the closure of the Animal Demography Unit, the project is now managed by the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town. The project aims to map the distribution and relative abundance of birds in southern Africa, and the original atlas area included South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini, although since 2012 the project has expanded to include Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. SABAP2 was launched on 1 July 2007. The field work for this project is conducted by more than 1700 volunteers, known as citizen scientists – they collect the data in the field at their own cost and in their own time. As such they make a huge contribution to the conservation of birds and their habitat.
Amyna axis, the oriental eight-spot, is a moth of the family Noctuidae. The species was first described by Achille Guenée in 1852.
iNaturalist is a social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its website or from its mobile applications. As of April 2022, iNaturalist users had contributed approximately 105 million observations of plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms worldwide, and around 212,000 users were active in the previous 30 days.
Pensoft Publishers are a publisher of scientific literature based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Pensoft was founded in 1992, by two academics: Lyubomir Penev and Sergei Golovatch. It has published over 1000 academic and professional books and currently publishes over 60 peer-reviewed open access scientific journals including ZooKeys, PhytoKeys, Check List, Comparative Cytogenetics, Journal of Hymenoptera Research, Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, and Zoosystematics and Evolution.
The Open Tree of Life is an online phylogenetic tree of life – a collaborative effort, funded by the National Science Foundation. The first draft, including 2.3 million species, was released in September 2015. The Interactive graph allows the user to zoom in to taxonomic classifications, phylogenetic trees, and information about a node. Clicking on a species will return its source and reference taxonomy.
Archotermopsidae is a family of termites in the order Blattodea, known as dampwood termites, formerly included within the family Termopsidae. They constitute a small and rather primitive family with five extant genera and 13–20 living species. They may be a nuisance, but compared to the drywood termites (Kalotermitidae), usually do not cause extensive damage to buildings or other man-made structures. As their name implies, they eat wood that is not dried out, perhaps even rotting, and consequently of little use to humans.
Terelliini is a tribe of fruit flies in the family Tephritidae. There are at least six genera and about 104 described species in Terelliini.
Zuphiini is a tribe of ground beetles in the family Carabidae. There are at least 3 genera and more than 120 described species in Zuphiini.
SeaKeys is a large collaborative marine biodiversity project funded through the Foundational Biodiversity Information Program in South Africa. The purpose of the project is to collect and distribute genetic, species and ecosystem information relating to marine biodiversity in southern Africa, which may be used to support informed decision-making about the marine environment.
Avibase is an online taxonomic database that organizes bird taxonomic and distribution data globally. At its core, the database relies on the notion of taxonomic concepts. rather than taxonomic names. Avibase incorporates and organizes taxonomic data from the main avian taxonomic publishers and other regional sources. Taxonomic concepts in over 230 different taxonomic sources have been mapped and cross-referenced to Avibase concepts.
