Global impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on biodiversity data collection.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic triggered different governmental responses across borders, with cascading effects on people's movements and on biodiversity data collection. We quantified changes in the number of species occurrence records collected during the first global lockdown (March 15th to May 1st 2020) relative to pre-pandemic levels using data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). We modelled how such changes relate to the stringency of governmental policy responses, changes in human mobility, and countries' population size and economic class across 129 countries. We further focused on data from the community science project eBird, which constitutes the largest dataset in GBIF, to investigate changes in participation and activity patterns of individual observers (eBirders

SUBMITTER: Roilo S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11906878 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature