World of Crayfish® is an open platform for the scientific community. It currently integrates over 117,000 occurrence records, covering more than 500 species, contributed by researchers across all continents — freely accessible to anyone who needs it.
I am a biologist employed by the West University of Timișoara, within the Crayfish Research Centre. My work is already supported through my academic position. I am not seeking funding for my time. I am asking for support to sustain the infrastructure behind the platform.
Some of the platform's most valuable components — AI-assisted extraction of species records from literature, taxonomic validation pipelines, and literature coverage checks — rely on commercial AI services. Each operation carries a real, cumulative cost. Individually small, but persistent and growing with usage. At present, these costs are covered personally.
As a concrete reference: approximately one euro sustains a full day of typical AI-assisted operations on the platform. There are no overheads, no salaries, no marketing layers — only the operational backbone that allows the system to function.
Thank you for considering supporting this effort.
Lucian Pârvulescu
Crayfish Research Centre, West University of Timișoara