The Cyprus Herp Atlas: An initiative for systematic recording of amphibian and reptile occurrences in Cyprus

By

Zotos, Savvas
Stamatiou, Marilena
Vogiatzakis, Ioannis N. (Ioannis Nikolaou)

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023-05-09

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

11

Pages

1--10

Subjects

Citizen science , Cyprus , database , herpetofauna , repository

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.11.e98142
eLocator: e98142

 

Abstract

Even though the reptiles and amphibians of Cyprus are of scientific and conservation importance and although several books, guides and scientific reports have been published the past 30 years, there is a clear absence of a systematic recording and archiving scheme of all available data in a structural database. Towards this end, the Cyprus Herp (= reptiles and amphibians) Atlas has been developed. The Atlas constitutes the first effort to collect all existing locality data of the herpetofauna species of the island (i.e. scientific reports, books, journals, grey literature) in a single database and simultaneously promote a citizen-science approach in order to collect and constantly update the database with new records.<br> The website of the Atlas contains basic educational and informational material for the public, along with the visibility tool of the database in the form of occurrence maps, in 5 km x 5 km grid cells, openly available for download in kmz format. The Atlas is a powerful tool for citizens, scientists and decision-makers, aiming to contribute to the study and conservation of the reptile and amphibian species of Cyprus. In this short communication, we give details on the structure of the Atlas.