Is it okay to use this forum to announce upcoming events? In the context of Wikiproject iNaturalist we (volunteers in both the iNaturalist and Wikimedia communities) meet.
There will be two upcoming events where we will argue for more cross-pollination between the two platforms.
For the purpose of explaining the idea’s behind cross pollinating iNaturalist and Wikimedia platforms I made two instruction videos. :
October 20-25th in Naturalis in Leiden (https://biodiversitynext.org/). The wikimedia event (plus our poster on iNaturalist) will be on Tuesday in the Workshop section: https://biodiversitynext.org/list-of-symposia-and-workshops/
You have to hurry
Thinking about going to @biodiv_next? Make sure you register before September 21! September 20 is the last day you can buy tickets at the regular price. After that, the late registration fee applies. https://t.co/2b1yYCx4R4
It would nice to meet…but it is a bit too expensive. https://biss.pensoft.net/article/39241/ Recent studies have shown a worrying decline in the quantity and diversity of insects at a number of locations in Europe (Hallmann et al. 2017) and elsewhere (Lister and Garcia 2018). Although the downward trend that these studies show is clear, they are limited to certain insect groups and geographical locations. Most available studies (see overview in Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys 2019) were performed in nature reserves, https://identify.biodiversityanalysis.nl/ leaving rural and urban areas largely understudied. Most studies are based on the long-term collaborative efforts of entomologists and volunteers performing labor-intensive repeat measurements, inherently limiting the number of locations that can be monitored.
We propose a monitoring network for insects in the Netherlands, consisting of a large number of smart insect cameras spread across nature, rural, and urban areas. The aim of the network is to provide a labor-extensive continuous monitoring of different insect groups. In addition, we aimed to develop the cameras at a relatively cheap price point so that cameras can be installed at a large number of locations and encourage participation by citizen science enthusiasts. The cameras are made smart with image processing, consisting of image enhancement, insect detection and species identification being performed, using deep learning based algorithms. The cameras take pictures of a screen, measuring ca. 30×40 cm, every 10 seconds, capturing insects that have landed on the screen (Fig. 1). Several screen setups were evaluated. Vertical screens were used to attract flying insects. Different screen colors and lighting at night, to attract night flying insects such as moths, were used. In addition two horizontal screen orientations were used (1) to emulate pan traps to attract several pollinator species (bees and hoverflies) and (2) to capture ground-based insects and arthropods such as beetles and spiders.
https://biss.pensoft.net/article/39229/ The potential of citizen scientists to contribute to information about occurrences of species and other biodiversity questions is large because of the ubiquitous presence of organisms and friendly nature of the subject. Online platforms that collect observations of species from the public have existed for several years now. They have seen a rapid growth recently, partly due to the widespread availability of mobile phones. These online platforms, and many scientific studies as well, suffer from a taxonomic bias : the effect that certain species groups are overrepresented in the data (Troudet et al. 2017). One of the reasons for this bias is that the accurate identification of species, by non-experts and experts, has been limited by the large number of species that exist. Even in the geographically limited area of the Netherlands and Belgium, the number of species that are regularly observed are in the thousands. This makes the ability to identify all those species difficult or impossible for an individual.
You will stay the whole congress 20-25 in Netherlands ? You are not lucky because after the hot sun and dry summer we have our traditional Dutch weather… rain and wind has returned.
We presented this poster featuring iNaturalist at Biodiversity Next and WikidataCon this week
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