Bio-Dem, an open-source web-app for exploring temporal and spatial relationships between the availability of biodiversity data and the dimensions of democracy, has earned selection as first prize in the 2021 GBIF Ebbe Nielsen Challenge.
The international team, led by Alexander Zizka of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig (iDiv), has deep roots in Sweden. Zizka first started work on Bio-Dem during a PostDoc at the University of Gothenburg, which currently hosts three Bio-Dem team members, with Johannes Klein linked to the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre (GGBC), Oskar Rydén, PhD student at the Department of Political Science and Staffan Lindberg, founder of the Varieties of Democracy Institute. Daniel Edler extends the connections further north to Umeå University, while Alexandre Antonelli, now director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has retained his connection with GGBC as its founder and former director.
In addition to the first prize winner, two entries shared second prize: Locating KBAs, an automated R-based workflow and plantR, an R-based application and workflow.