Bio-Dem, a tool to explore the relationship between biodiversity data availability and socio-political conditions in time and space
(2021) In Journal of Biogeography 48(11). p.2715-2726- Abstract
Aim: Geo-referenced species occurrence records are a prime example of biodiversity data and a cornerstone of biodiversity research. Yet, their availability depends on non-biological factors, including the political framework in the region of collection. Here we present Bio-Dem (www.bio-dem.surge.sh), an open-source software to explore the relationship between the availability of species occurrence records and the political framework in countries worldwide and through time. Location: Global. Taxon: Any. Methods: Bio-Dem accesses the number of occurrence records available from countries worldwide from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) and socio-political information from these countries from the Varieties of... (More)
Aim: Geo-referenced species occurrence records are a prime example of biodiversity data and a cornerstone of biodiversity research. Yet, their availability depends on non-biological factors, including the political framework in the region of collection. Here we present Bio-Dem (www.bio-dem.surge.sh), an open-source software to explore the relationship between the availability of species occurrence records and the political framework in countries worldwide and through time. Location: Global. Taxon: Any. Methods: Bio-Dem accesses the number of occurrence records available from countries worldwide from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) and socio-political information from these countries from the Varieties of Democracy database (www.v-dem.net) as well as information on colonial history from the Issue Correlates of War Project. Results: Bio-Dem is available as a free graphical user interface web application at www.bio-dem.surge.sh. Through three interactive graphs, Bio-Dem enables users to explore the relationship between species occurrence records and countries’ regime type, freedom of movement, freedom of association, gross domestic product, education length, political corruption, armed conflict and colonial history. We describe possible links of these specific political indicators with the collection and mobilization of biodiversity data. Illustrative examples and video tutorials explaining the use of Bio-Dem are available at www.bio-dem.surge.sh. Main conclusions: Bio-Dem provides a user-friendly way to explore the link between socio-political variables and the availability of species occurrence records in user-selected taxa and geographic regions, and to generate hypotheses on their connection. We envision Bio-Dem as a useful tool for teachers communicating the caveats of available biodiversity data, for biodiversity scientists exploring potential spatial and temporal bias in their data, and for social scientists exploring the impact of political systems on scientific data collection and biodiversity conservation.
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- author
- Zizka, Alexander ; Rydén, Oskar ; Edler, Daniel ; Klein, Johannes ; Perrigo, Allison LU ; Silvestro, Daniele ; Jagers, Sverker C. ; Lindberg, Staffan I. LU and Antonelli, Alexandre
- publishing date
- 2021-11
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- autocracy, colonial history, colonialism, democracy, GBIF, herbarium specimens, museum specimens, occurrence record availability, regime type, sampling bias
- in
- Journal of Biogeography
- volume
- 48
- issue
- 11
- pages
- 12 pages
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85115088204
- ISSN
- 0305-0270
- DOI
- 10.1111/jbi.14256
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- additional info
- Funding Information: The authors thank all data collectors and contributors to GBIF and V‐Dem. The authors also thank Sonia Dhanda for helpful feedback on the text about colonial history. No permits were obtained for this research, since no data collection was performed. The research presented in this paper is a contribution to the strategic research area Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate (BECC), and funded in part by the BECC Action Group ‘V‐Bio: Assessing the link between biodiversity and democracy’. Additional funding was provided by iDiv/sDiv via the German Research Foundation (DFG FZT 118) to AZ; the Centre for Collective Action Research to OR; Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Grant M13‐ 0559:1), Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (Grant 2013.0166) and the European Research Council (Grant 724191) to SIL; internal grants from the Vice‐Chancellor’s office, the Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg to SIL and SJ; the Swedish Research Council (2019‐05191), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (FFL15‐0196) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to AA. DS received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (PCEFP3_187012, FN‐1749) and from the Swedish Research Council (VR: 2019‐04739). DE was supported by the Swedish Research Council (2016‐00796). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Journal of Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
- id
- b28f732e-c66f-4f22-b015-c3b0cb154c49
- date added to LUP
- 2023-02-23 11:14:34
- date last changed
- 2023-02-24 12:56:55
@article{b28f732e-c66f-4f22-b015-c3b0cb154c49,
abstract = {{<p>Aim: Geo-referenced species occurrence records are a prime example of biodiversity data and a cornerstone of biodiversity research. Yet, their availability depends on non-biological factors, including the political framework in the region of collection. Here we present Bio-Dem (www.bio-dem.surge.sh), an open-source software to explore the relationship between the availability of species occurrence records and the political framework in countries worldwide and through time. Location: Global. Taxon: Any. Methods: Bio-Dem accesses the number of occurrence records available from countries worldwide from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) and socio-political information from these countries from the Varieties of Democracy database (www.v-dem.net) as well as information on colonial history from the Issue Correlates of War Project. Results: Bio-Dem is available as a free graphical user interface web application at www.bio-dem.surge.sh. Through three interactive graphs, Bio-Dem enables users to explore the relationship between species occurrence records and countries’ regime type, freedom of movement, freedom of association, gross domestic product, education length, political corruption, armed conflict and colonial history. We describe possible links of these specific political indicators with the collection and mobilization of biodiversity data. Illustrative examples and video tutorials explaining the use of Bio-Dem are available at www.bio-dem.surge.sh. Main conclusions: Bio-Dem provides a user-friendly way to explore the link between socio-political variables and the availability of species occurrence records in user-selected taxa and geographic regions, and to generate hypotheses on their connection. We envision Bio-Dem as a useful tool for teachers communicating the caveats of available biodiversity data, for biodiversity scientists exploring potential spatial and temporal bias in their data, and for social scientists exploring the impact of political systems on scientific data collection and biodiversity conservation.</p>}},
author = {{Zizka, Alexander and Rydén, Oskar and Edler, Daniel and Klein, Johannes and Perrigo, Allison and Silvestro, Daniele and Jagers, Sverker C. and Lindberg, Staffan I. and Antonelli, Alexandre}},
issn = {{0305-0270}},
keywords = {{autocracy; colonial history; colonialism; democracy; GBIF; herbarium specimens; museum specimens; occurrence record availability; regime type; sampling bias}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{11}},
pages = {{2715--2726}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{Journal of Biogeography}},
title = {{Bio-Dem, a tool to explore the relationship between biodiversity data availability and socio-political conditions in time and space}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14256}},
doi = {{10.1111/jbi.14256}},
volume = {{48}},
year = {{2021}},
}