This document discusses Les Underhill's contributions to the Animal Demography Unit's Virtual Museum in Nigeria from November 2014. It notes that building distribution maps of species through thousands of photo-place-date records in the museum is crucial to set conservation priorities by understanding biodiversity distributions and how they are changing. It also emphasizes that establishing current baselines is important to measure how development and climate change impact Africa's biodiversity since knowledge of up-to-date distribution patterns is limited.

1. BioMAPping Nigeria
ADU Virtual Museum
November 2014
Les Underhill
Animal Demography Unit
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Cape Town
http://adu.org.za
http://vmus.adu.org.za

2. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

3. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

4. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

5. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

6. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

7. Rockwater, Jos, Plateau State

8. Rockwater, Jos, Plateau State

9. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

10. Abuja

11. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

12. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

13. Abuja

14. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

15. APLORI, Jos, Plateau State

16. Abuja

17. Victoria Island, Lagos

18. What’s the value?
• Contributions were made to eight of the
sections of the Animal Demography Unit’s
Virtual Museum at http://vmus.adu.org.za
• The crucial first step in setting priorities
for biodiversity conservation is a
knowledge of the distributions of each
species and how they are changing
• We need 1000s of Virtual Museum
records – photo-place-date – to build
these distribution maps

19. What can you do to help?
Snap it
and MAP it

20. The need for baselines
• We are building the baseline against
which to measure how development and
climate change are impacting Africa’s
biodiversity
• Our ability to effectively manage and
conserve the incredible abundance and
diversity of life in Africa is
compromised by our limited knowledge
of up-to-date distribution patterns

21. The instructions for
submitting records to the
ADU Virtual Museum are
available at
http://www.slideshare.net/
meganloftieeaton/how-to-submit-
records-to-the-animal-
demography-units-virtual-
museums-28710898
Become an ADU fan at
https://www.facebook.com/
animal.demography.unit
Rockwater, Jos, Plateau State
APLORI, Jos, Plateau State