the west african vegetation database (presented at aetfat 2010, antananarivo)

The West African Vegetation Database: incentives for collaborative data pooling

Marco Schmidt, Thomas Janßen, Mipro Hien, Souleymane Konaté, Anne Mette Lykke, Ali Mahamane, Bienvenu Sambou, Brice Sinsin,

Adjima Thiombiano, Rüdiger Wittig & Georg Zizka

19th AETFAT congress, Antananarivo, 25-30 Apr 2010

Outline

• Background

• Objectives

• Projects / Partners

• Database Features

• Data holdings

• Perspectives

Background

• Present state of vegetation data in West Africa– limited availability– lack of regional exchange– low degree of digitization

• Urgent need of such data in times of rapid environmental change

Objectives

• enhance digitization and improve data security

• increase availability and visibility of vegetation data for West Africa

• facilitate exchange and regional analyses

• identify data gaps and avoid redundant work

Projects / Partners

• BIOTA (Biodiversity Transect Analysis in Africa) and

SUN (Sustainable Use of Natural Vegetation in West Africa)

– Development and Coordination:Senckenberg Research Institute

– Universities of Ouagadougou, Cotonou, Niamey, Dakar, Abidjan, Bobo-Dioulasso, Aarhus and Frankfurt, Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre

Database Features

• Various kinds of relevés– species inventories– phytosociological relevés– dendrometrical relevés

Database Features

• Local offline database VegDa 3.0– local Access db allows editing in working environments

without internet connection– synchronisation with online database

Database Features

• Access Rights Management– each relevé can be declared „private“, „public“ or „shared

with selected users“

Database Features

• Search and export data– metadata visible for all relevés (including „private“ data)– comfortable data clipboard– various export options (local db, crosstables for community

analyses, species occurrence files for GIS and ENM programs)

Data Holdings

• presently entered in local db:Partner Releves

PhytoRecords

PhytoReleves Dendro

Records Dendro

Releves Total

Records Total

Aarhus 1131 3079 4649 12117 5780 15196Cotonou 917 39556 482 17968 1399 57524Dakar 0 0 452 7439 452 7439Frankfurt-SGN 5061 120756 0 0 5061 120756Frankfurt-Uni 817 18711 154 1537 971 20248Niamey 1097 21351 131 36740 1228 58091Ouaga 2293 38922 800 40029 3093 78951Total 11316 242375 6668 115830 17984 358205

Perspectives

• finish last tests and launch final version soon!

www.westafricanvegetation.senckenberg.de

Perspectives

• establish a comprehensive suite of botanical resources for West Africa

further db modules, e.g.- functional traits- plant use

www.westafricanplants.senckenberg.de

Perspectives

• regional analyses of biogeography, biodiversity and phytosociology

• studies on climate / land use change impact on food plants, pastures, ESS

• integration in global vegetation databases

Acknowledgements

• BMBF (BIOTA – funding code 01LC0617D1)

• EU-FP6 (SUN – funding code INCO-031685)

• Hesse (BiK-F)

• all data contributors and local coordinators

Thank you for your kind attention!

Would you like to contribute? Contact us!westafricanvegetation@senckenberg.de