Providing access to Albertine Rift biodiversity data

A queryable website on taxon and specimen information for selected Albertine Rift species: Birds, butterflies (Papilionidae (Papilio, Graphium), Nymphalidae (Charaxes)), flowering plants (coffee family, Rubiaceae), and lacustrine fishes (Cichlidae)

• Introduction
• Objectives
• Website structure
• Data sources
• Intellectual Property Rights
• CD-ROM version
• Disclaimer
• Feedback please
• Acknowledgements
• Literature cited

Introduction

The Albertine Rift

The Albertine Rift forms the epicenter of Africa's montane rainforests. Both its fauna and flora have links to the west and southwest with Cameroon and Angola, to the northeast with the Kenyan Highlands, and the southeast with the Eastern Arc Mountains, and ultimately via the Malawi Rift with southern Africa (Kingdon 1989). On the western side it connects with the Guinea-Congolian lowland rainforest. Combined, its central location within Africa, the diversity of habitats, the altitudinal zonation and the presence of ancient rift lakes, makes the Albertine Rift region outstanding for its high species diversity and large numbers of endemics. This area holds two UNESCO World Heritage Sites that, given the continued political and economic crisis in the region, are threatened. Despite it possibly being the top biodiversity hotspot in Africa, its status could not even be properly assessed in a global study due to data deficiencies (Myers et al. 2000).

The Albertine Rift
Copyright © courtesy of Paul Bamps

The biological importance of the Albertine Rift

There is no recent and up-to-date synthesis on the biodiversity and the degree of endemism in this ecoregion. The available information indicating that the fauna and flora of these mountains is remarkably rich mainly consists of older taxonomical studies. Both for plants and animals, exceptionally large numbers of endemic species have been recorded for all taxonomic groups and endemism has been described at all altitudes, including the lowland forests on the western margins which form a border to the Congo Basin lowland forests (Plumtre et al. 2003), and the East African Rift lakes (Snoeks 2000). Despite of their high biological importance, these terrestrial and aquatic habitats and their faunas remain poorly studied. For all taxonomic groups additional field studies as well as reviews based on existing collections are needed.

Threats to biodiversity

Within the five countries that encompass the boundaries of the Albertine rift, the level and degree of protection is variable. Coupled to high human population density and destruction of habitat, hunting, fishing and poaching are major problems in several protected areas and even more so outside these areas. The collection of fire wood does not only result in deforestation, it also causes erosion and excessive sedimentation in aquatic environments, a serious problem in several areas. Many of these problems are associated with (and aggravated by)recent wars in this area. These wars prevent the effective management of the protected areas in this region, thereby further increasing problems of encroachment and illegal activities.

Biodiversity collections

The Belgian Federal Scientific Institutions hold vast collections of the region, e.g. resulting from surveys in the National Parks (then under Belgian colonial rule) and more recent expeditions. These data, when made accessible, could be an important tool in decision making on the selection of priority regions for conservation. The holdings of a number of target groups have been digitized and prepared to be made available for online consultation.

ENBI programme

European Network for Biodiversity Information (ENBI) is an initiative funded by the European Union, and has the general objective to manage an open network of relevant biodiversity information centres in Europe. This programme aims at being the European contribution to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), promoting two main fields of biodiversity study activities:

1. making the biodiversity data freely available via the Internet
2. sharing scientific biodiversity data to benefit society, science and a sustainable future.

One element of ENBI (WP13, work package 13) deals with making non-European biodiversity data in European repositories globally available. Notably, because many European countries have a colonial past, a large share of global biodiversity information, especially from developing countries in the tropics resides in databases of European institutions (including museum and botanic garden collections). With a still very fragile infrastructure for taxonomy in tropical developing countries and a very limited number of well-trained taxonomists, there is a great need for high quality collections-based information among local (para)- taxonomists, conservationists and other users of floristic and faunistic information. Data sharing may take the form of making available (visible, downloadable, analysable) on the Internet, current names, digitised images and collecting data of selected specimens, for which there is an urgent information need in the developing countries. Within WP13 a number of feasibility studies were planned. One such feasibility study is the development of a queryable website for endemic Albertine birds, butterflies (Papilionidae (Papilio, Graphium) and Nymphalidae (Charaxes)), flowering plants (coffee family, Rubiaceae), and lacustrine fishes (Cichlidae).

Birds, butterflies, flowering plants and lacustrine fishes of the Albertine Rift
Voucher: Copyright © National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Meise, Belgium
Birds, butterfly and fish: Copyright © Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium

BEBIF involvement

Playing its role as Belgian GBIF node, BeBIF has provided the public data concerning this project to the GBIF network. As subcontractor for this ENBI WP13 project, BeBIF has designed and implemented this User Interface with all its functionalities, including the log in service. Some technical data validation has been performed on the database itself (checking dates, data types, ...).

Objectives

The main objective of this pilot study is to make all relevant information of Albertine Rift birds, butterfies, cichlid fishes and coffee plants accessible to a wider public. The present searchable website based platform will:

• list current taxonomic status of species involved, as well as synonymy
• allow queries on distribution, including mapping, country lists, etc.
• allow queries on availability and geographic origin of type specimens, their Latin names, as well as current English names (when available)
• provide images (drawings and or photographs) of all included species
• and provide all relevant taxonomic information and specimen depository.

Limitations of scope: this pilot study is focusing on several representatives of endemic Albertine Rift plants, birds, fishes and butterflies. For the birds, additional records from eastern Africa are included but not as exhaustive as those for the true Afrotropical region. It is envisaged that the database will be expanded in the future to include more animal and plant groups.

Website structure

The butterfly database contains 24,498 records of 469 taxa and geo-referenced data for all localities incorporated. Habitus photographs are available for all species for the genera Papilio and Graphium (in total 168 taxa).

The bird database contains information on taxon and (geo-referenced) collection localities for approximately 35.000 specimens from the Albertine Rift. For the 36 endemic species, photographs are included.

The cichlid fishes database contains infomation of the specimen and frozen tissue collections for the species from lakes Tanganyika and Kivu. The data represent 3,747 block records, with more than 8,000 specimens of 56 genera and about 225 species. Pictures of specimens taken in the field or drawings are shown.

The Rubiaceae database holds records taxa from the Rubiaceae family. The presented data focus on the Rubiaceae of the Albertine Rift region (120 species from Flore du Rwanda; min. 5 specimens databased per species). Geo-referenced data for collection localities are available for all the Rubiaceae specimens.

Taxon information

This concerns all relevant data with regard to the species. The following information is provided:

• The current valid taxonomic name and for the fishes a list of synonyms.
• One of more images (photographs or drawings).
• A distribution map, based on specimen information for that particular species and directly linked to the specimen information for each separate geographical record.
• For all animal taxa, a link to GEBIF, for fishes a link to FishBase.
• For a selection of cichlid fishes, accesion numbers of sequenced mitochondrial genes with link to the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database.

Specimen information

This includes all relevant data that are linked to individual specimens or block records (i.e. set of specimens with identical data). This information is the standard information that is usually associated with collection specimens: the place where and date when the specimen was collected, name of collector and collection where the specimen is deposited, the status of the specimen (type or non-type), etc.

Categories of ID: Most of the material was identified by either of the proponents or by colleagues who could provide a reliable identification.

How to use the database

As indicated, the information can be accessed through two different channels: either taxonomic information or specimen information. For taxonomic information, go to the taxon list and select a name. You will then have the option to look at different information sets available for that particular taxon (description, images, distribution map). For specimen information, you have three different kinds of query levels that are explained below.

Queries

The full specimen information covers taxonomic status, georeferences, collection codes, etc.. Not all of this information is always relevant to persons querying the database. Often, more limited queries need to be answered such as what fish occurs where or what cichlid species has been found in Lake Tanganyika. In order to facilitate these varied types of questions, the database can be queried through three different search levels, depending on the kind of information one is looking for.

Basic search:

this will give the taxonomic name of specimen, the country of origin. Duplicate records are omitted.

Advanced search:

provides the same fields as basic search plus some additional ones like the name of exact locality, date of collection, status of the specimen, name of museum depository. Again duplicate records are omitted.

Specimen information level:

gives all fields available, hence the same fields as an advanced search plus: latitude & longitude of locality, exact number of specimens, name of collector, and availability of genetic information.

Each of these search forms can be queried through a filter system. By selecting names from the scroll down menu for the individual cells, the user can filter out the required information. For example, in the basic search form, by selecting 'Rwanda' in the 'country' field, all records for Burundi will be shown. By selecting 'Burundi' as well as 'Tanganyika' in the '***' the records will be narrowed down to those from Burundi that were collected in Lake Tanganyika. General queries like 'which species are found in DR Congo' or 'which species are reported from Lake Kivu in Rwanda' can thus be answered in this way. If one wants the standard information on specimens, the advanced search can be used. Specimen information level gives all data related to a particular specimen or block record.

Data sources

Information in this website originates from three main sources: taxonomic revisions that were recently (in the last 10 years) produced by partners of this project, secondly specimen collections that are housed in the Royal Museum for Central Africa, the National Botanic Garden and the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences that were routinely verified during various ongoing studies carried out in these institutions.

Collection holdings

The data included in this database, are based on specimens that are housed at the three participating Belgian Federal Scientific Institutions.

Intellectual Property Rights

Collection specimens are the property of the respective institutions where they are deposited. All data associated with those particular specimens are therefore also property of those institutions. Most of them are already available and belong to the public domain since there were published in taxonomic revisions under headings such as 'Material examined'. When information of a particular specimen is used, reference should be made to the museum where it is housed, by indicating the institution's name or acronym. Copyright of the images (photographs or drawings) used is indicated on the individual image. This is either the institution where the photograph was taken or the photographer that took it. In case of published drawings, the copyright remains with the publisher. Whenever information that is provided through this website, is used by third parties, reference should be made to the website for example by the following or similar phrasing:

Erik Verheyen, Piet Stoffelen, Ugo Dall'Asta & Jos Snoeks. 2004. Providing access to Albertine Rift Biodiversity Data. A queryable website on taxon and specimen information for endemic birds, butterflies (Lepidoptera, Papilionidae (Papilio, Graphium) and Nymphalidae (Charaxes)), flowering plants (coffee family, Rubiaceae), and lacustrine fishes (Cichlidae). http://projects.bebif.be/enbi/albertinerift/common/. Access date: 21/11/2024

CD-ROM version

Because access to the internet is not available in many places in the developing world, we want to make the data as easily accessible as possible. Therefore a CD-ROM version of the website is available upon request. For further information, please contact Erik Verheyen at .

Disclaimer

Although care was taken that the data incorporated in the database are correct, the proponents take no responsibility whatsoever with regard to the use of the data by third parties. Persons retrieving information from this website for their own research or for applied aspects such as pest control programmes, do so at their own risk.

Feedback please

Before and during the development of this database, we discussed the design and information to be added with several colleagues in the field, as well as with non-specialists who are nevertheless interested in the kind of data we provide. Also the BeBIF partners, with their larger experience of website development for biodiversity related information, assisted greatly in the development.

Databases like these, can only be improved upon if we get feedback from the end-users. That way layout, possibilities, and information provided can be altered to the demand of the users and the website becomes more demand driven. Attached is a short comment reporting form that will allow you to give us a response. Please, share your comments and suggestions with us.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to , , and of BeBIF for their assistance and support in the development of actual website. BeBif itself acknowledges support from subcontacting funds from this particular project in the framework of ENBI WP 13 feasibility studies and from the Belgian Science Policy for their general program. The finalisation of data input and actual development of the website was made possible through financial support provided by Work Package 13 of the European Network for Biodiversity Information (EU funded network contract EVK2-CT-2002-20020). We particularly thank Henrik Enghoff and Isabel Calabuig (co-ordinators of WP 13) for providing us with good advice.

Literature cited

• Kingdon J. (1989). Island Africa: The evolution of Africa's rare animals and plants. Princeton University Press, New Jersey
• Meyers N., Mittermeier R.A., Mittermeier C. G., da Fonseca G.A.B. & Kent J. (2000). Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature, 403: 853-858.
• Plumtre, A.J., Behangana, M., Ndomba, E., Davenport, T., Kahindo, C., Kityo, R., Ssegawa, P., Eilu, G., Nkuutu, D., & Owiunji, I. (2003). The biodiversity of the Albertine Rift. Albertine Rift Technical reports No3 113 pages.
• Snoeks J. (2000). How well known is the ichthyodiversity of the large East African lakes. In Rossiter, A. and Kawanabe, eds. Ancient lakes: Biodiversity, ecology and evolution. Advances in Ecological Research 31: 17-38. Academic Press.