The training manual “Digitization of Data from the Annals of Nature and Scientific Biological Collections of Specially Protected Natural Areas” has been posted on the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve website.
Chronicles of Nature of the reserves are unique archives of annual scientific reports, which collect the results of observations of natural objects and phenological phenomena in territories that have been withdrawn from economic use for many decades. But these unique data are now stored in the archives of reserves and national parks, have been published in scientific articles and are practically inaccessible to foreign researchers.

A creative scientific team is working on the basis of the Prioksko-Terrasny Zapovednik, uniting scientists from a number of scientific institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the cities of Pushchino and Moscow, which digitized, statistically processed and published both the results of the research and the primary data of long-term series themselves. We are pleased to share our knowledge and prepared the training manual “Digitization of Data from the Annals of Nature and Scientific Biological Collections of Protected Areas” and posted it on the reserve’s website in the “Library” section.

The authors of the manual have extensive experience in data mobilization through GBIF.org. The manual contains detailed recommendations for employees of nature reserves and national parks on their own preparation of data series on vegetation and wildlife collected by the Chronicle of Nature program for publication in the Global Biodiversity Information System.

In the development of the manual, a lot of work was done: with the help of experts, more than 30,000 records of species findings and phenological phenomena in reserves and national parks of Russia were prepared and published. On the basis of the materials of the manual, a training course was tested during the project with the participation of representatives of scientific employees and deputy directors for scientific work from 20 institutions of the Ministry of Natural Resources managing the federal specially protected natural territories.

This manual was prepared as part of the Prioksko-Terrasny Zapovednik implementation of the project “Chronicle of the Nature of Russian Specially Protected Natural Areas: Digitization and Data Mobilization” with financial support from the Global Biodiversity Information System (GBIF FinBIF, project Russia2019_03).

Textbook Authors:

Yuri Buyvolov – Ph.D., Deputy Director for Research, FSBI Prioksko-Terrasny State Nature Biosphere Reserve, metro station Danki, Moscow Region
Natalya Ivanova – Ph.D., researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences – branch of IPM M.V. Keldysh, Pushchino
Maxim Shashkov – Senior Researcher, Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences – IPM Branch M.V. Keldysh, Pushchino

The Prioksko-Terrasny State Nature Reserve is the first among Russian specially protected natural territories to publish in 2017 the data of the Chronicle of Nature in the GBIF Global System of Information on Biological Diversity.