Suchergebnisse

The DR Congo covers more than 2,345,000 km2 and has the second largest forest containing a great animal biodiversity, which unfortunately remains little characterized. This is the case for edible insects that Congolese eat in abundance and which contribute significantly to the fight against food insecurity. Recent studies have shown that 80% of the country's population consumes two different species of insects per week (60 to 150g/person/day). To date, more than 50 species of insects (mainly in 5 families: Saturniidae, Notodontidae, Curculionidae, Termitidae and Gryllidae, respectively two moths, beetles, termites, and crickets) have been identified with protein levels (55-65%), fat content (10-15%) or vitamins. Faced with a political will shifted to other priorities, no formal program to collect data to characterize this biodiversity has been initiated. For their part, classic studies that provided current data are facing the following main challenges: (i) the national territory is too vast and impossible to cover by these types of studies, (ii) insects are known under several common names (complicated by >240 languages) or only one name is used to identify taxonomically distant species; (iii) historical data are very hard to find (the oral tradition being preferred to writing); (iv) the difficulty of finding geo-referenced data (with the risk associated in its collection); (v) the absence of reference collections and the lack of specialists. An effective alternative to circumvent these difficulties and to gather data (whose urgency is understandable due to the shrinking of some insect populations or their habitats) is promoting Citizen Science. Such research programs involving scientists and the participation of amateurs or interested volunteer citizens within local populations would constitute a set of data across the country and over a longer period than what has been done so far. With the development of free software and mobile applications, non-specialists could, based on standards and protocols validated by scientists, be involved in the digitization of specimens observed or identification of insect species through graphical user interfaces; help clarify the correspondence between vernacular names and scientific names; participate in habitat monitoring of insect species; or help collecting geo-referenced data via mobile phone. These field-based research activities can be conducted without great expense and will offer professionals and non-professionals a collaborative ground to contribute together toward advances in knowledge of edible insects and the implementation of targeted actions for the management of this resource in DR Congo. ; Peer reviewed

Despite the country's significantly diverse flora and fauna, very little data are available on the biodiversity of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). To remedy this while facing the urgent need for better knowledge and management of biodiversity, some universities in the country are engaged in the implementation and the publishing of the results of work on biodiversity conducted by researchers. To date UPN, the National Pedagogical University at Kinshasa has published five databases in collaboration with the Royal Museum for Central Africa and GBIF: (i) a database of edible insects in DR Congo, including sixty different species belonging respectively and by degree of importance to the Lepidoptera (46.7%), Isoptera (18.6%), Orthoptera (17.6%), Coleoptera (9.7%) and Hymenoptera (3.7%) orders of insects; (ii) a database on farmed animals, including about 13 species of birds, 29 mammals, 5 rodents and 3 mollusks; (iii) a database on forage plants, including about fifty species distributed in 15 orders of plants and 20 families. For each of these species, taxonomic information, common names in French and local languages, and chemical composition are provided; (iv) a database on phytosanitary plants used as pesticides or medicines, with special taxonomic coverage in the Phylum Spermaphyta, Class Magnoliopsida, and Subclass Rosidae; and (v) a botanical database of select families of plants (e.g. Moringaceae, Asteraceae, Poaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Burceraceae, Malvaceae) represented by data in the herbarium of the university. Although many Congolese scientists still retain their data in Excel spreadsheets, some of them are aware of the urgency of sharing bio-data even though they face technology and training gaps that make sustained collaboration a challenge. To increase their motivation to do proper data sharing, there is an urgent need for a better access to digitization tools (and methods) and to standards for mobilizing and integrating sample-based data.