EAGER: Coupling remote acoustic recorders and camera traps with crowd sourcing for monitoring (or surveying) vertebrate biodiversity

Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract EF 1450318 McShea Understanding the relationship between animal abundance and composition and the characteristics and quality of their habitat remains a fundamental question in biology because of the challenges in adequately measuring the numbers and kinds of animals using that habitat. New tools and approaches are becoming available to remotely measure animals using sound and photographs that provide a window into nature not possible by conventional sampling methods. However these new technologies require new approaches to summarizing and synthesizing the pictures and sounds to convert them into meaningful information about animals. This EAGER is focused on tackling one of the most fundamental issues in measuring animals without using human observers or capture techniques. This EAGER award will test questions about the relationship between animal productivity and biodiversity and evaluate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity at the habitat, site, and landscape scales. In addition the research will allow the assessment of how these relationships shift in different ecological networks, testing hypotheses where community composition is important. Each technology brings high-density complex data and unique processing challenges. The combination of data involves creative development of software, a data workflow to process and identify photo and sound data, and use of crowdsourcing to process the significant sound and visual data and expert review to implement quality control measures on the large amount of data collected. The crowd sourcing programs will involve many volunteers to identify mammals? photos and frog, bat, and bird recordings, revealing a hidden world of wildlife and educating these volunteers on the diversity that surrounds them. Results from the project will also be incorporated into existing Smithsonian outreach and educational programs that involve eMammal