Use Cases For EuroAPPA

(October 2025)

Reminder: In EuroAPPA, we will focus on reusing two existing systems: DoPI and tools within GloBI, plus adding results from modelling and mapping exercises in WP1 (i.e. we don’t aim to build new infrastructures, except what we need for the modelling results).

A use case is a short story about specific actors performing specific tasks with (in this case) EuroAPPA. We are compiling example Use Cases to request new ones from other stakeholders. This will help us address all potential user needs when designing EuroAPPA’s interface.

Use Case 1 - A Honours/Master’s student who wants data for their thesis (Jeff)

Goal: Address the following two questions: (1) How complete is the pollen host-plant coverage of bee species that are included in the most recent IUCN Red List: https://iucn.org/press-release/202510/mounting-risks-threaten-survival-wild-european-pollinators-iucn-red-list ? (2) Are certain pollen host types over- or under-represented in the list? Prediction: More specialised bees (i.e. monolectic species) will be over-represented.

Actors: The Honour/Master’s student and their thesis advisor(s); (if applicable) editor of the journal; (if applicable) peer reviewers

Resources: Internet; EuroAPPA; IUCN Red List; literature on bee plant hosts; R for data analysis; word processing software for the thesis write-up

Steps: (1) Download IUCN data on bees; (2) Download data from EuroAPPA on bees and their host plants; (3) Assess coverage of the downloaded data in relation to the IUCN data; (4) Assess the -lecty (i.e., pollen specificity - mono-/poly-lectic) of the bees in the IUCN List versus the -lecty for European bee species generally; (5) Statistical analysis; (6) Discussion of results with thesis advisor(s); (7) Write up of the thesis; (8) Write up of a research paper if appropriate.

Out of scope (for this use case) - communication with EuroAPPA folks and partner; detailing

Question -

Which use case describes the EuroAPPA team’s collaborations with their users?
Which use case describes the EuroAPPA team’s internal communication and collaboration?
What kind of alternate use cases using different resources and taxa (e.g., caterpillars) could be imagined?

Use Case 2 - IPBES Global Assessment

Goal

Question: What European evidence exists on the decline of pollination interactions for the next global assessment?
EuroAPPA use: Export machine-readable datasets and summaries linking temporal interaction data with land-use change and climate models.

Actors

Resources

Steps

Use Case 3 - European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) researching the pollinators of Green Beans (a food crop) (Cala)

Goal: An EFSA researcher is investigating the dependence of food crops (e.g., green beans) on pollinators. They address the following questions: (1) What is the current scientific knowledge of the floral visitors of the crop plant (Green beans)? (2) Is there variation in the visitors of the Green Beans crop across different geographical areas of Europe? 3) Are there knowledge gaps in the visitors of plant species x in some areas where it is cultivated? 4) is there evidence of changes in the pollinators of crop x over time?

Actors: EFSA researchers

Resources: EuroAPPA; CropPol database; primary literature on crop pollination

Steps: (1) Check CropPol; (2) Download EuroAPPA data on target species; (3) compare coverage (4) map records 5) run statistical analysis for temporal differences in pollinators

Note - GloBI reviewed a version of CropPol (see Elton, Nomer, & Preston. (2025). A Review of Biotic Interactions and Taxon Names Found in ibartomeus/OBservData hash://md5/35b1210f8b22088babe73b2b9012c15e. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15256406 )

Use Case 4.1 - Scientist wishing to know about the types of plants used across the distribution of a pollinator (Jeff)

Goal

Conservation assessment of a specific pollinator

Specific questions: How does their data compare to data available elsewhere? Can the scientist enrich their own datasets with other openly available datasets, thereby extending the taxonomic, geospatial, and temporal aspects of the dataset?

Assumptions

Scientists have funding and time to reach their goals. Funding is out of scope for this use case.

Actors

A pollination ecologist studying the ecology of a rare pollinator
EuroAPPA team

Resources (existing methods/ data/ infrastructure)

EuroAPPA
Internet
Personal Data
DOPI
GBIF
EU Pollinator Hub
Zenodo (publications)

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Steps
Plan the survey (where, when, what)
1. Determine the taxa of interest (pollinator and its plants)
2. Determine the geospatial-temporal domain
Carry out the survey
1. Record data on the plants that are visited by the pollinators
2. Format the data spreadsheet according to DwC
Compare newly acquired survey data with already available data in EuroAPPA
Analyse data
Write the manuscript and cite EuroAPPA and sources within
add new data to EuroAPPA-linked repository (during peer-review and definitely after publication)

Use Case 4.2 - Scientist wishing to know about the spatial diversity of pollinators of a plant

Goal

Habitat restoration

Specific questions: How does their data compare to data available elsewhere? Can the scientist enrich their own datasets with other openly available datasets, extending the taxonomic, geospatial, and temporal aspects of the dataset?

Assumptions

Scientists have funding and time to reach their goals. Funding is out of scope for these use cases.

Actors

A pollination ecologist studying the reproductive ecology of a rare plant
EuroAPPA team

Resources (existing methods/ data/ infrastructure)

EuroAPPA
Internet
Personal Data
DOPI
GBIF
EU Pollinator Hub
Zenodo (publications)

Steps
Plan the survey (where, when, what)
1. Determine the taxa of interest (plants and pollinators)
2. Determine the geospatial-temporal domain
Carry out the survey
1. Record data on the pollinators of the plant
2. Format the data spreadsheet according to DwC
Compare newly acquired survey data with already available data in EuroAPPA
Analyse data
Write the manuscript and cite EuroAPPA and sources within
add new data to EuroAPPA-linked repository (during peer-review and definitely after publication)

Use Case 4.3 - Scientists wanting to know how we can assess completeness and FAIRness of European pollination datasets

EuroAPPA use: Use integrated data reviews and rarefaction analysis to evaluate data coverage across taxa, geography, and literature sources.

Goal

Actors

Resources

Steps

Use Case 5 - Documentary film maker wanting information about a particular plant or pollinator that they wish to feature

Goal

Actors

Resources

Steps

Use Case 6 - Citizen or Gardener (Claus)

Question: What native plants should I grow to help local pollinators?
EuroAPPA use: Search for local pollinator–plant interactions and distribution maps filtered by region, returning lists of species observed in a specific Location and their host plants.

Goal

Homeowners or renters (not specifically gardeners) want to know which bee plants are best for their gardens in Aarhus, Denmark.

Actors

Someone living in Aarhus, Denmark, with an interest in bee health.
expert organisations (e.g., wild garden NGOs or individuals, Claus R.)
plant sellers - nurseries

Resources

the internet; a garden in Aarhus; webpage on the publication of a physical, nice-looking poster on bees by Claus.

Steps

homeowner goes out and looks at the garden in Aarhus
homeowner notices there’s a lot of grass and concrete in their yard
homeowner identifies where to change the grass/concrete to get something else
homeowner searches the internet for “bee-friendly garden” (in Danish, “bi-venlig have”)
home owner finds Claus’ name related to the published poster on bees.
homeowner asks Claus to list plants that are bee-friendly.
7.a) Claus suggests going to the nursery and observing which plants are visited by bees at the nursery (go and have a look).
7.b) for skilled gardeners, Claus provides a detailed list of plants instead 8) homeowner go to the nursery and buy the plants.

Question

What to do if the flowers aren’t flowering? How to buy plants out of season (e.g., maybe look at the label).

Wouldn’t it be a nice idea to have Claus publish his plant list through EuroAPPA? How do we make EuroAPPA so that homeowners can easily query for bee-friendly plants in Aarhus, Denmark?

How does EuroAPPA facilitate the provision of the plant list to the homeowner?

How does Claus make his knowledge available within constraints (money, time), while also being attributed for this work?

How do existing resources (e.g., the EU Butterfly Hub) facilitate the provision of the plant list to the homeowner?

Use Case 7 - Energy & Agriculture Policy Researcher (Butterfly WP4) (Jeroen/ Dehui)

Question: Which pollinators service rapeseed crops in Poland vs Germany vs France, and what are the vulnerabilities for bioenergy supply chains?
EuroAPPA use: Compare regional interaction datasets to identify key pollinators for Brassica napus and link them to land-use and pesticide datasets for risk assessment.

Goal

Actors

Resources

Steps

Use Case 8 - Environmental Agency (e.g. European Environment Agency, EEA)

Question: How have plant–pollinator communities changed over time in Natura 2000 sites?
EuroAPPA use: Retrieve historical and contemporary interaction records to generate trend maps and indicators for inclusion in EU biodiversity and pollinator reports.

Goal

Actors

Resources

Steps

Use Case 9.1 - Integration of EuroAPPA with the EU Pollinator Hub (Noa/Andrés)

Goal

Integrate the data into the EU Pollinator Hub, making it FAIR, quality-checked, and standardised for easier reuse (in line with the Hub’s recognised standards).

Automate the process of data retrieval from the EuroAPPA.

Actors

EuroAPPA Team

EU Pollinator Hub Team

Resources

Data and Metadata from the EuroAPPA.

EuroAPPA API Documentation.

Developers’ working time.

Data manager/scientist working time.

Steps

EuroAPPA Team - Standardise their datasets according to available standards. Apply these to all the data and metadata of the EuroAPPA.

EuroAPPA Team - Implement the API to make it operational, so that data and metadata are accessible. Agree on a transferring scheme and prepare API user documentation.

EUPH Team - Retrieve the data and metadata from EuroAPPA to include in EUPH.

EUPH Team - Perform additional quality assessment and standardisation, as needed.

EUPH Team - Generates dataset reports and makes them available alongside standardised datasets.

Use Case 9.2 - Reuse/Integration of EuroAPPA with GloBI and other EuroAPPA partners (Jorrit)

Goal

EuroAPPA is a project that interfaces with experts and the general public. EuroAPPA uses GloBI and other existing resources to build a one-stop shop for plant-pollinator research in Europe.

GloBI wishes to receive feedback from EuroAPPA team members, EuroAPPA expert users, and EuroAPPA community scientists (general interested public).

Actors

GloBI curators and developers

EuroAPPA team

EuroAPPA (expert) users

DoPI curators and developers

Additional EuroAPPA (data) partners

Resources

GloBI data reviews and other data products

EuroAPPA feedback comments

EuroAPPA request for information

Steps

An expert “Jane Doe” on pollinators reviews EuroAPPA data products
the expert finds that a notable pollinator of Norway is missing
the expert contacts the EuroAPPA team to suggest improvements
the EuroAPPA team discusses the improvement suggestion with GloBI, DoPI and other EuroAPPA partners
Improvement suggestions are implemented by EuroAPPA partners
An updated EuroAPPA is reviewed by the submitting expert, Jane Doe

Use Case 10 -

Goal:

Actors:

Resources:

Steps: (1)

Out of scope (for this use case) -

Question -

Invitation to provide a use case for EuroAPPA

draft email to invite a variety of stakeholders

Dear (personalise),

EuroAPPA will be a platform providing access to EU-wide pollination information and resources, developed as part of the project Butterfly. EuroAPPA is not a database per se, but will instead provide access and reviews of multiple resources, including databases, from a single location.

We expect the capabilities of EuroAPPA to be: #(add more details here)

search pairwise interactions of plants and pollinators, including location and time (as in GloBI)
search for evidence of effective pollination by different pollinators to wild and crop plants
produce interactive maps of pollination interactions in Europe
generate data reviews across databases with pollination information

(Alex: insert text indicating the time needed to prepare a use case)

We are asking for your input in the form of example(s) on how you would use EuroAPPA in your work. These use cases from diverse stakeholders will help us develop the best way to provide access to resources in EuroAPPA. Use cases can come from any potential user, from the general public to expert pollination scientists. Please use this simple format to provide your use case(s):

Use Case title
Goal:
Actors:
Resources:
Steps:

We provide two examples below. Please add as much detail as you like, and send it back to us by Jan 31st, 2026.

Many thanks!

The EuroAPPA team

Example Use Case - Citizen or Gardener # needs a bit of work, EuroAPPA not in steps

Goal: Homeowners or renters (not specifically a gardener) want to know the best bee plants in their garden in Aarhus, Denmark. Question: What native plants should I grow to help local pollinators?

Actors: 1) someone living in Aarhus, Denmark, with an interest in bee health. 2) expert organisations (e.g., wild garden NGOs or individuals, Claus R.) 3) plant sellers - nurseries

Resources: the internet; a garden in Aarhus; webpage on the publication of a physical, nice-looking poster on bees by Claus.

Steps: 1) home owner goes out and look at the garden in Aarhus 2) homeowner notice there’s a lot of grass and concrete in their yard 3) homeowner identifies where to change the grass/concrete to get something else 4) homeowner searches the internet for “bee friendly garden” (in Danish, “bi-venlig have”) 5) home owner finds Claus’ name related to the published poster on bees 6) homeowner asks Claus to list plants that are bee friendly 7a) Claus suggests to go to the nursery, and observe which plants are visited by bees at the nursery (go and have a look). 7b) for skilled gardeners, Claus provides a detailed list of plants instead 8) homeowners go to the nursery and buy the plants.

EuroAPPA use: Search for local pollinator–plant interactions and distribution maps filtered by region, returning lists of species observed in a specific location and their host plants.

Example Use Case - A Honours/Master’s student who wants data for their thesis

Actors: The Honour/Master’s student and their thesis advisor(s); (if applicable) editor of the journal; (if applicable) peer reviewers

Resources: Internet; EuroAPPA; IUCN Red List; literature on bee plant hosts; R for data analysis; word processing software for the thesis write-up

Steps: (1) Download IUCN data on bees; (2) Download data from EuroAPPA on bees and their host plants; (3) Assess coverage of the downloaded data in relation to the IUCN data; (4) Assess the -lecty (i.e., pollen specificity - mono-/poly-lectic) of the bees in the IUCN List versus the -lecty for European bee species generally; (5) Statistical analysis; (6) Discussion of results with thesis advisor(s); (7) Write up of the thesis; (8) Write up of a research paper if appropriate.