Biologer – Growth of a database

Abstract

Citizen science in Serbia left much to be desired, especially considering generally attractive and fascinating group – reptiles. is urged forming of Biologer, a database for collecting field observations about species distribution, which includes web site and mobile phone application. Basic functionality of the software was ready for use on late March 2018, which corresponded to lectures held for biology and ecology students at three Universities, in Niš, Belgrade and Novi Sad. First version of mobile phone application was launched in April, and was fast followed by novel, improved versions. In the beginning web software only allowed to record field observations, but already in May data became visible via maps of distribution given in 10×10 km squares, along with descriptions of species and photo galleries. Although database covers only several animal groups (reptiles, amphibians and butterflies), number of entries grows fast, reaching up to 7000 entries in period of first three months! In the same time period number of active users reached over 80, gathering experienced biologists as well as students and nature enthusiasts. is torrent of distributional data already enriched our knowledge about many species in Serbia. e software is open source and can easily be adopted for use in the other countries. In collaboration with colleagues from Croatian Herpetological Society Hyla, Biologer started expanding to one more data platform adapted for use in Croatia. e Serbian and Croatian Biologer databases are compatible, and could be, in future, united to pan­Balkan database. Also, there is room for expending number of taxa covered by the database and hopefully the dragonflies will soon be included. Rufford Small Grant Foundation funded development of Biologer through two projects. It was started from turtle related project of Ana Golubović, and further supported by a butterfly oriented project granted to Miloš Popović. Constant expanding and development of the Biologer opens a great opportunity for collaborations among teams working on Rufford projects on different groups and further networking among Balkan countries.