For the last few years I spent an extensive amount of time reading and searching for scientific publications produced on Tunisian biodiversity, and developed a few observations on which I based a solution I'll describe below. I hope everyone will get on board and contribute to this open research project.
The Problem: A Significant Knowledge Gap
There is a significant knowledge gap about Tunisian biodiversity. Long story short, we don't know what we have. It's imperative to classify and enumerate things — we conduct inventories all the time, whether at home or work, and we have the same need when it comes to biodiversity.
Taxonomic studies are the baseline of all consequent studies in biology and ecology. Without knowing precisely what species we're dealing with, we can't go further in investigating their biology and ecology.
Ghost Publications
We also have many ghost publications — produced work kept offline in local reviews or unpublished master/thesis dissertations (not only papers, but unpublished data, pictures, videos). This keeps valuable information off-limits, bringing its potential to a minimum.
Outdated and Fragmented Research
Much research on Tunisian biodiversity is outdated, and full documents are hard to access. The available content is strongly fragmented and decentralized across multiple platforms, requiring a lot of time to search through.
This scattered dataset makes it troublesome for scientists to keep a record of what's done and what still needs attention — slowing the progress of science, dividing forces, and misleading focus away from taxa that urgently need conservation.
The Solution: The Tunisian Biodiversity Community
To put years of hard work into value, to get a clear picture of the richness of Tunisian biodiversity, to concentrate effort on critical conservation issues, and to bring together people working on the same questions, I'm suggesting an open research project everyone can contribute to.
The Tunisian Biodiversity Community (TBC) is a Zenodo-based community providing open-access, centralized library of biodiversity in Tunisia — curating academic and educational publications: data, scientific papers, videos, audio, and pictures.
How It Works
- Keeps the DOI of previously published papers with each author's ORCID to protect their rights.
- Gives unpublished content a new DOI to facilitate citation and direct access to its digital representation.
- Via keywords and CrossRef search, easily detects content about a specific taxon you're interested in.
Get Involved
It's easy to contribute — just follow the instructions on the Zenodo website. A Facebook group reinforces connections between members and hosts discussion on biodiversity and wildlife conservation in Tunisia.
- Upload your research to the Zenodo community.
- Share unpublished data — photos, videos, observations.
- Cite and use the available resources, and spread the word.
By centralizing Tunisia's biodiversity research, we can accelerate scientific progress, reduce duplication, identify knowledge gaps, foster collaboration, preserve data that might otherwise be lost — and make science more open and accessible to everyone.
Together, we can build a comprehensive picture of Tunisia's rich biodiversity and work towards better conservation outcomes.
With gratitude to Prof. Sophien Kamoun, who introduced Zenodo to me.
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