REDERC NGO (Benin)

Trained in data science and holding a master's degree in forestry sciences and techniques, Apollon is interested in the application of data science in ecological research to meet the challenges of biodiversity conservation. As part of this project, he will develop and manage an online mycological database for sub-Saharan mushrooms, and produce a mushroom status assessment and conservation strategy for each beneficiary country. More specifically, he will: • Identify reference collection sources and publications of new sub-Saharan fungal records and, where permissible, digitize them. • Extract records from other open access databases (particularly GBIF), avoiding duplicates, edit to compatible standard, and warehouse them together with new records for use in assessments. • For each selected country, search published works, extracting relevant qualitative information not only on fungi, but also on associated organisms and on ecosystems. • List associated organisms nationally significant economically or because endemic or threatened, and allocate extra attention to their fungi. • Accumulate material for one fungal field guide (images, descriptions, information about individual species etc.); prepare text, illustrations and diagrams, including introduction, acknowledgements, and indexes.