This event was organized as part of the BIFA project "Small animals, big data: Mobilizing citizen science for data on the spiders of Asia" (BIFA6_029) by Nature Mates-Nature Club in association with Strand Life Sciences and SpiderIndia (DiversityIndia). Conducted in the mangroves of the Sundarban Tiger Reserve, the purpose of this meet was to inculcate an understanding of biodiversity data mobilization and to document the biodiversity of Sundarbans by involving the students and experts on various topics related to biodiversity documentation. There were over 30 participants, all of whom came from different places and had different interests.
Objectives of the meeting were:
- Understanding the mangrove ecosystem looking at various taxa.
- Awareness generation among the local people along with the participants.
- Interactions and collaborations among participants.
During the meet, participants documented both the flora and fauna of the area. In all the regions visited 114 different types of plants were observed during the meet. In fauna, students documented animals from both the vertebrate and invertebrate sections. Among invertebrates, many arthropods, molluscs were seen, and among vertebrates, many birds, reptiles, and mammals.
The compiled biodiversity of the region was published to GBIF as a dataset entitled "First DiversityIndia Meet (2022) held at Sundarbans, West Bengal, India".
