The Citizen Science Department seeks to connect people with biodiversity conservation- and development-related research projects and seeks to help orchestrate that research, disseminate the results, and support community action.
The Citizen Science Department links citizens who have an existing interest in biodiversity and development research with opportunities where they can volunteer on and contribute to long-term research projects. In the process of training and assisting students, providing immersive opportunities for informal researchers, and collaborating with local communities, our mission is to transform all stakeholders into citizen scientists.
Get involved with our various biodiversity research and mapping projects:
The Virtual Museum (VM) provides the platform for citizen scientists to contribute to biodiversity research and mapping projects. This innovative concept was originally developed by the Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2005. It is now managed by the Biodiversity and Development Institute (an independent non-profit company) and the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology (UCT).
- How to submit records to the Virtual Museum
- BioMAPping
- How to create a species distribution map in the Virtual Museum
SABAP2 is a citizen science bird atlas project that is driven by the energy of several hundred volunteers who are mapping the distribution of birds across several southern African countries. SABAP2 is the follow-up project to the Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP1), which took place from 1987-1991. The second bird atlas project started on 1 July 2007 and is still growing. The project aims to map the distribution and relative abundance of birds in southern Africa and includes: South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia. To gather data, volunteers select a geographical ‘pentad’ on a map and record all the bird species seen within a set time frame, in order of species seen. This information is uploaded to the SABAP2 database and is used for research and analysis by several different agencies, including the South African National Biodiversity Institute, BirdLife South Africa, as well as academics and students at various universities.
Biodiversity Observations is an Open Access ejournal which focuses on the publication of descriptive papers which report observations relating to biodiversity. There is a summary of the activities of the journal for the period 2010-2022 here.