As a result of Romania’s accession to the European Union in 2007 and the expansion of the Natura 2000 protected area network, the amount of data about the local bat fauna has grown rapidly in the last 10-15 years. Concrete bat conservation projects implemented by several NGOs also contributed a significant amount of professional observations. However, despite the fact that in many cases it would facilitate decision-making (e.g. in the case of infrastructure or energy projects), it would help to accurately determine the conservation status of bat species (e.g. in country reports for Article 17. of the Habitats Directive), or when designating new protected areas, there is no comprehensive and modern online database. And in many cases, existing interfaces / summaries accept incorrect data without critical analysis.
In this context, our team started the creation of an online database of all publicly available bat data, and this effort was later joined by our colleagues from the Republic of Moldova, where there is also no such platform. Our efforts were also underlined by the need to update the distribution maps of bat species for the 2nd edition of the European Atlas of Mammals, a benchmark work in this field. At the moment the database is ready for launch, and accessing it, viewing maps and data, querying, will require user registration. The official launch is planned for autumn 2024.
At launch, the database will contain over 30.000 individual observations of Romanian (32) and Moldovan (25) bat species. The data originates from over 300 different sources from the 1850-2024 period, these sources being scientific publications, conference papers, concrete projects, or citizen science data. In addition, we have included data from recent POIM projects for the development of management plans for protected areas, as well as a significant amount of data from our own conservation projects funded by the Conservation Leadership Programme, Columbus Zoo & Aquarium, EUROBATS and LIFE+.
Registered users will be able to view 10×10 km distribution maps for each bat species, but also species lists from Natura 2000 protected areas, together with literature sources on the provenance of the respective data. We pay special attention to sensitive details about exact locations (e.g. caves), these will not be visible publicly. Equally important, users can add their own bat observations, thus completing the maps. Each observation and data series uploaded by registered users will be checked and validated by an expert from our team, before actual inclusion in the database. In this sense, users will have at hand a series of criteria, necessary for adding data on those species, which are more difficult to identify.
Complex querying of the platform will also be possible, for example generating graphs with monitoring data specific to a concrete location, or downloading detailed information about selected areas. The database will be continuously connected to the Romanian bat portal on www.lilieci.ro, where the general public will be able to view the current distribution map of bat species, automatically generated from the data available on the platform.
Of course, these data do not fully cover the two countries. But in addition to visualizing areas in Romania and Moldova that already have data on bats, the platform will also highlight deficient areas, thus making it possible to develop concrete projects for these. Thus, we hope that the platform will also give a boost to the field of bat research in Romania and Moldova.
The online database of Romanian and Moldovan bat data is created by a team composed of experts from the Center for Bat Research and Conservation, the Myotis Bat Conservation Group, as well as from the Institute of Zoology of the State University of the Republic of Moldova. The team is composed of Szilárd-Lehel BÜCS, István CSŐSZ, Csaba JÉRE, Levente BARTI, Irina POCORA, Viorel POCORA, Victoria NISTREANU, Vladislav CALDARI, Natalia DIBOLSCAIA and Alina LARION. Our volunteers from the CBRC also played an important role: Flaviu BODEA, Katalin MAKÓ, Delia CREȚU, Casandra Iulia SÎRB, Ana-Teodora ȘTEFAN, Tonia VLAD, Andrei VALCEFF, Georgiana PĂUN, Sonia-Gyopár POȘTOACĂ, Flavius Ciprian DAMIAN, Denis BIGHE and Samuelle ULRICH. The creation of the database benefited from direct funding through the EUROBATS Project Initiative and from the European Mammal Foundation.
