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. 2024 Oct 14:12:e18229.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.18229. eCollection 2024.

World of Crayfish™: a web platform towards real-time global mapping of freshwater crayfish and their pathogens

Mihaela C Ion #  1 Caitlin C Bloomer #  2 Tudor I Bărăscu  3 Francisco J Oficialdegui  4 Nathaniel F Shoobs  5 Bronwyn W Williams  6 Kevin Scheers  7 Miguel Clavero  8 Frédéric Grandjean  9 Marc Collas  10 Thomas Baudry  9 Zachary Loughman  11 Jeremy J Wright  12 Timo J Ruokonen  13 Christoph Chucholl  14 Simone Guareschi  15 Bram Koese  16 Zsombor M Banyai  17   18 James Hodson  19 Margo Hurt  20 Katrin Kaldre  20 Boris Lipták  4   21 James W Fetzner  22 Tommaso Cancellario  23 András Weiperth  24 Jạnis Birzaks  25 Teodora Trichkova  26 Milcho Todorov  26 Maksims Balalaikins  25 Bogna Griffin  27 Olga N Petko  28 Ada Acevedo-Alonso  29 Guillermo D'Elía  30 Karolina Śliwińska  31 Anatoly Alekhnovich  31 Henry Choong  32 Josie South  33   34 Nick Whiterod  35   36 Katarina Zorić  37 Peter Haase  38   39 Ismael Soto  4 Daniel J Brady  40 Phillip J Haubrock  4   39   41 Pedro J Torres  42 Denis Şadrin  28 Pavel Vlach  43 Cüneyt Kaya  44 Sang Woo Jung  45 Jin-Young Kim  46 Xavier H C Vermeersch  47 Maciej Bonk  48 Radu Guiaşu  49 Muzaffer M Harlioğlu  50 Jane Devlin  51 Irmak Kurtul  52   53 Dagmara Błońska  54 Pieter Boets  55 Hossein Masigol  28 Paul R Cabe  56 Japo Jussila  57 Trude Vrålstad  58 David V Beresford  59 Scott M Reid  51 Jiří Patoka  60 David A Strand  58 Ali S Tarkan  54   61 Frédérique Steen  7 Thomas Abeel  62 Matthew Harwood  34 Samuel Auer  63 Sandor Kelly  64 Ioannis A Giantsis  65   66 Rafał Maciaszek  67 Maria V Alvanou  65 Önder Aksu  68 David M Hayes  69 Tadashi Kawai  70 Elena Tricarico  71 Adroit Chakandinakira  72 Zanethia C Barnett  73 Ştefan G Kudor  74 Andreea E Beda  75 Lucian Vîlcea  76 Alexandru E Mizeranschi  28   77 Marian Neagul  28 Anton Licz  78 Andra D Cotoarbă  79 Adam Petrusek  80 Antonín Kouba  4 Christopher A Taylor  2 Lucian Pârvulescu  28   79
Affiliations

World of Crayfish™: a web platform towards real-time global mapping of freshwater crayfish and their pathogens

Mihaela C Ion et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Freshwater crayfish are amongst the largest macroinvertebrates and play a keystone role in the ecosystems they occupy. Understanding the global distribution of these animals is often hindered due to a paucity of distributional data. Additionally, non-native crayfish introductions are becoming more frequent, which can cause severe environmental and economic impacts. Management decisions related to crayfish and their habitats require accurate, up-to-date distribution data and mapping tools. Such data are currently patchily distributed with limited accessibility and are rarely up-to-date. To address these challenges, we developed a versatile e-portal to host distributional data of freshwater crayfish and their pathogens (using Aphanomyces astaci, the causative agent of the crayfish plague, as the most prominent example). Populated with expert data and operating in near real-time, World of Crayfish™ is a living, publicly available database providing worldwide distributional data sourced by experts in the field. The database offers open access to the data through specialized standard geospatial services (Web Map Service, Web Feature Service) enabling users to view, embed, and download customizable outputs for various applications. The platform is designed to support technical enhancements in the future, with the potential to eventually incorporate various additional features. This tool serves as a step forward towards a modern era of conservation planning and management of freshwater biodiversity.

Keywords: Aphanomyces astaci; Astacidae; Cambaridae; Endangered species; Invasive species; Open data; Parastacidae; Species distribution.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Logical workflow.
Schematic representation of the logical workflow in and around the World of Crayfish environment, detailing potential data origins and how the data is processed by WoC before being provided to the end user. The figure was created using Inkscape (https://inkscape.org).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Overview of the collected data in the World of Crayfish platform, and various centralisation of records of natives versus non-native (introduced status included).
(A–B) Crayfish species records at continental level (type locality and Aphanomyces astaci highlighted), (C–D) country level record counts, and (E–F) major hydrographic basins record counts. The lower panel integrates data for the best-represented species. The collage was created in Inkscape (https://inkscape.org) using maps generated in ArcGIS Pro (ESRI, Redlands) with freely available basemap layers: (A–B) world continents from ESRI (https://services.arcgis.com/P3ePLMYs2RVChkJx/arcgis/rest/services/World_Continents/FeatureServer), (C–D) administrative boundaries at country level from EuroGeographics (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/administrative-units/countries), and (E–F) major hydrological basins from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (https://data.apps.fao.org/catalog//iso/7707086d-af3c-41cc-8aa5-323d8609b2d1). Crayfish silhouettes were drawn by Lucian Pârvulescu.

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