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Balearica

What is Balearica?

Expanding our understanding of biodiversity and strengthening conservation efforts is essential in a rapidly changing world. While biodiversity conservation is a widely discussed global issue, protecting biological communities is particularly important for fragile environments, such as small islands. These ecosystems often host many unique species and are especially vulnerable to habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change.

To address these challenges and enhance biodiversity research in the Balearic Islands, the Balearic Biodiversity Centre has developed Balearica, an innovative and publicly accessible biodiversity platform. Balearica is an advanced system designed to collect, manage, analyse, and share biodiversity data. Balearica collects and shares data from many sources, including field observations, museum records, genetic information, and data retrieved from public databases. This makes it one of the most complete resources for understanding the Balearic Islands’ natural life.

By consolidating these resources, Balearica serves as a powerful tool for researchers, conservationists, policymakers, and the public. It facilitates informed decision-making, enhances ecological research, and supports conservation strategies to safeguard the unique biodiversity of the Balearic Archipelago. Through its user-friendly interface, Balearica fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange, ultimately contributing to the long-term preservation of the region’s natural heritage.

Behind the Scenes of Balearica

The compilation of Balearica follows a structured workflow to ensure accuracy, comprehensiveness, and reliability of the data.

graph LR
  A[Create Taxonomic Checklists] --> B[Expert Review];
  A --> C[Data Collection];
  B --> C; 
  C --> D[Data Sharing];

  style A fill:#f9f9f9,stroke:#333,stroke-width:2px
  style B fill:#d9f7be,stroke:#2d862d,stroke-width:2px
  style C fill:#cfe2f3,stroke:#005cbf,stroke-width:2px
  style D fill:#f4cccc,stroke:#cc0000,stroke-width:2px

  1. Create Preliminary Taxonomic Checklists. The first step involves compiling initial taxonomic checklists using data aggregated from multiple publicly available databases. Sources include Bioatles1, Global Biodiversity Information Facility2, Fauna Europaea3, and other reputable sources that catalogue biodiversity information. By integrating data from various sources, we aim to create comprehensive lists covering a wide range of taxa across the entire Balearic territory and its diverse terrestrial and marine habitats.

  2. Expert Review and Taxonomic List Refinement. To enhance the accuracy and reliability of the taxonomic lists, we collaborate with taxonomic experts. They conduct a thorough review of the preliminary checklists, identifying and flagging species with uncertain distributions, potential misclassifications, and fill gaps in data incorporating any missing taxa that may not have been adequately represented in public databases. This review process is crucial for maintaining scientific integrity and ensuring the taxonomic data aligns with the latest research standards. This process is conducted continuously, allowing the lists to remain up to date and reflect ongoing taxonomic revisions and discoveries.

  3. Data Collection. In addition to the taxonomic lists, biological, genetic, and ecological data have been gathered for each taxon. This involves consulting multiple reference databases, as well as both peer-reviewed and grey literature sources to ensure comprehensive data coverage.

  4. Data Sharing. Balearica makes data available to everyone and facilitates its sharing through standardized formats and APIs, ensuring interoperability with other biodiversity information systems. Each record is accompanied by its source to guarantee traceability and proper authorship recognition when available. Open access to this data supports further research, conservation planning, and policy development, fostering collaboration among researchers and institutions.

Documentation

This guide provides a concise overview of the process used to develop Balearica. The process is continuously evolving through ongoing refinements and expansions, ensuring a more comprehensive and robust framework while enhancing precision and effectiveness. Information about additional details and optimizations will be provided periodically.

Stay tuned to the Balearica Blog for the latest updates and news!

founding

  1. I. R. Torrens. L’aplicació bioatles: orígens, evolució i perspectives futures del sig de distribució d’espècies a les illes balears. Llibre verd de protecció d'espècies a les Balears, pages 529–535, 2015. ↩

  2. GBIF.org. Gbif home page. 2025. Accessed: 2025-10-14. URL: https://www.gbif.org. ↩

  3. Yde De Jong, Melina Verbeek, Verner Michelsen, Per de Place Bjørn, Wouter Los, Fedor Steeman, Nicolas Bailly, Claire Basire, Przemek Chylarecki, Eduard Stloukal, and others. Fauna europaea–all european animal species on the web. Biodiversity data journal, pages e4034, 2014. ↩