BioCaching App: Engaging the Public in a Global Biodiversity Resurvey

The BioCaching App is an innovative mobile tool that engages the public in revisiting museum specimen collections in their communities, or anywhere in the world. It puts the power to conduct a local or global biodiversity... [ view full abstract ]

The BioCaching App is an innovative mobile tool that engages the public in revisiting museum specimen collections in their communities, or anywhere in the world. It puts the power to conduct a local or global biodiversity resurvey in anyone’s hands. The application updates our knowledge of current biodiversity distributions and helps make real-time, location-specific connections between historic observations and current conditions. The app integrates current user location data with geolocated species occurrence records found in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and connects users to related field observations and published literature in the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). With one click, app users can see a map of GBIF occurrence records based on their current location. Users can then identify previously observed species that they would like to search for and conduct a ‘trip’, attempting to re-document those species. They can then record whether or not they are able to relocate each organism. Users can record new field observations at the same location (or if no species are found, record an absence). This ‘trips’ function adds the ability to record absence data and time spent searching to the app and the core functionality of iNaturalist (an online platform for recording and sharing biodiversity observations). All verified reports generated by the public will become new GBIF records, and the absence records generated will similarly be aggregated and made accessible to scientists. The app is a concrete way for users to ‘see’ habitat modification and connect that change to biodiversity change and loss. In addition, it engages users with species occurrence data and historic literature and provides historical context for observing flora and fauna in nature. The BioCaching app is a collaboration between the California Academy of Sciences Library, Citizen Science team and iNaturalist, supported by the Institute for Museum and Library Studies.