The Forgotten African Islands - Addressing the gap in freshwater biodiversity knowledge for the Indian Ocean Islands
Abstract
Freshwater biodiversity remains relatively understudied in Sub-Saharan Africa and especially the Indian Ocean Islands (IOI). The IOI are characterised by unique biodiversity which exhibit high levels of endemism and are vulnerable to threats from invasive alien species, anthropogenic impacts and global climate change. While groups of aquatic insects such as Odonata are fairly well documented others critical to river health assessments, namely Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera (EPT) taxa are not. Other important indicator organisms such as the group of algae known as the diatoms are also rather poorly documented. This project will address the need to manage the collation, digitisation, amendment and uploading of existing data for EPT taxa and diatoms from the IOI to GBIF. Furthermore, focused sampling efforts will be coordinated on the islands using – amongst others – citizen science tools in order to create awareness and obtain new distribution records. Collated data will be delivered to GBIF as well as integrated into the Freshwater Information Platform (FIP) where it can be used to assist with conservation efforts and monitor threatened or alien invasive taxa.
keywords freshwater biodiversity Ephmeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera diatoms occurrence data
Publikationen
Project staff
Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber
ask@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-81225
Project Leader
01.06.2018 - 30.06.2019