Bio Initiative | FAQ

Bio Initiativeis a national biodiversity research data network, aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to all types of life that curently habitat in Greece.

Bio Initiative was originally the Master's Final Project of Theodore Mill and Maria Krania at Technological Institude of Agriculture department in Thessaloniki.

Bio Initiative is built using html, css, bootstrap, MySQL, jQuery, and Google Maps. It also utilizes GBIF and EPPO used on taxon pages, as well as Kew, Sanbi, and a variety of other data sources to import taxonomic information. For a list of taxonomic authorities and policies visit our page.

An identification, or ID for short, is an assessment of the type of animal, plant, or other organism that was observed. It is typically listed with a common name and a scientific name, though some species do not have common names. When you make an observation, identify the organism as best as you can, even if that is just “plant” or “bird.”

On Bio Initiative other users are encouraged to add identifications to each other’s observations, based on the evidence provided, in order to confirm or improve the Community Identification.

Add identifications at a level that you are confident of and that is supported by the evidence provided in the observation. For example, if based on the evidence in the observation, you think it could be either a Short-tailed Weasel (Mustela erminea) or a Long-tailed Weasel (Mustela frenata), but you're not quite sure or the evidence isn't clear enough, you should add an identification of Weasels (genus Mustela).

Photos attached to observations should include evidence of the actual organism at the time of the observation, observed by the user who is sending the observation. Photos used in BEINGr observations should represent your own experiences, not just examples of something similar to what you saw. Please do not send photos you found elsewhere, such as online or in a book, since they don't represent your own experiences and are probably a violation of copyright law. Similarly, please do not send screenshots from broadcasts of live cameras unless you are the owner of the live camera.

If you record an observation of a tree, then go back a day later to take another photo, please add a new observation using the new photo, because it represents the tree at a different point in time.

Yes, as long as you know the correct date and location, it's fine to send older photos.

It’s important to remember that all identifications on BEINGr that are made by other users who are all volunteering their time to identify observations; there are no BEINGr members who are paid to add identifications. This means it can take some time for observations to receive identifications.

Other factors affecting time to ID are:

What type of organism you observed. Birds, reptiles, and amphibians generally get identified more quickly than other taxa. Plants, fungi, insects, spiders, fish, mollusks, and others generally take longer, but this can vary.

Whether the photos or sounds you sent are helpful with identification. In general, it’s best to have close, detailed photos that depict multiple parts of the organism, such as the leaves and flowers of a plant, or the top and bottom of a mushroom cap. Blurry, distant photos are often not useful for identification.

How “searchable” your observation is. Adding even a coarse ID to an observation, like “Insects” or “Plants” will help users searching for observations of those taxa to find your observation. And because BEINGr’s focus is on wild organisms, observations of captive/cultivated organisms do not turn up in search results by default, so you’re better off posting wild organisms.