scholarly journals Using iNaturalist to Contribute Your Nature Observations to Science

EDIS ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (4) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Matthew Earl Boone ◽  
Mathieu Basille

iNaturalist is one of the most popular citizen science data portals in the world. Citizens can submit pictures of biological observations to an online data base to be reviewed by the rich online community and used for important biodiversity research around the world. Users can use the iNaturalist ap to plan community projects and bioblitzes and learn more about species identification and biodiversity. In this 5-page fact sheet, authors Matthew Earl Boone and Mathieu Basille explain how observations are vetted and used and give a step by step guide to get started! Published by the UF/IFAS Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/uw458

2017 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
David C. Seburn ◽  
Erin Mallon

Amphibians are known to be declining around the world. Although often only reported for frogs, declines among salamanders are also known to be occurring. In Ontario, for example, citizen science monitoring indicates the Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) has not been found in the last 20 years in many areas where it was historically known to occur. To test whether this decline is real or the result of lack of recent observations, we conducted targeted surveys in 25 grid squares with no recent records of the species and confirmed the presence of the Eastern Red-backed Salamander in 84% of these squares. It made up 90% (183 of 202) of all six species of salamanders encountered and was also the first salamander species detected in 90% of the squares. The median number of cover objects needed to detect a species was 34 (range 1–145) for Eastern Red-backed Salamanders, 129.5 (range 34–204) for Blue-spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma laterale), and 154 (range 6–187) for Spotted Salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum), and these detection rates differed significantly (H = 9.46, P < 0.01). Our study suggests that Eastern Red-backed Salamanders have not declined. We caution researchers using citizen science data that a lack of sightings of a “cryptic species” does not mean a species has declined.


BioScience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey T Callaghan ◽  
Alistair G B Poore ◽  
Thomas Mesaglio ◽  
Angela T Moles ◽  
Shinichi Nakagawa ◽  
...  

Abstract Citizen science is fundamentally shifting the future of biodiversity research. But although citizen science observations are contributing an increasingly large proportion of biodiversity data, they only feature in a relatively small percentage of research papers on biodiversity. We provide our perspective on three frontiers of citizen science research, areas that we feel to date have had minimal scientific exploration but that we believe deserve greater attention as they present substantial opportunities for the future of biodiversity research: sampling the undersampled, capitalizing on citizen science's unique ability to sample poorly sampled taxa and regions of the world, reducing taxonomic and spatial biases in global biodiversity data sets; estimating abundance and density in space and time, develop techniques to derive taxon-specific densities from presence or absence and presence-only data; and capitalizing on secondary data collection, moving beyond data on the occurrence of single species and gain further understanding of ecological interactions among species or habitats. The contribution of citizen science to understanding the important biodiversity questions of our time should be more fully realized.


2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (7) ◽  
pp. E1201-E1213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilé Colón Robles ◽  
Helen M. Amos ◽  
J. Brant Dodson ◽  
Jeffrey Bouwman ◽  
Tina Rogerson ◽  
...  

Abstract Citizen science is often recognized for its potential to directly engage the public in science, and is uniquely positioned to support and extend participants’ learning in science. In March 2018, the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, NASA’s largest and longest-lasting citizen science program about Earth, organized a month-long event that asked people around the world to contribute daily cloud observations and photographs of the sky (15 March–15 April 2018). What was considered a simple engagement activity turned into an unprecedented worldwide event that garnered major public interest and media recognition, collecting over 55,000 observations from 99 different countries, in more than 15,000 locations, on every continent including Antarctica. The event was called the “Spring Cloud Challenge” and was created to 1) engage the general public in the scientific process and promote the use of the GLOBE Observer app, 2) collect ground-based visual observations of varying cloud types during boreal spring, and 3) increase the number and locations of ground-based visual cloud observations collocated with cloud-observing satellites. The event resulted in roughly 3 times more observations than during the historic and highly publicized 2017 North American total solar eclipse. The dataset also includes observations over the Drake Passage in Antarctica and reports from intense Saharan dust events. This article describes how the challenge was crafted, outreach to volunteer scientists around the world, details of the data collected, and impact of the data.


Author(s):  
Congtian Lin ◽  
Jiangning Wang ◽  
Liqiang Ji

Biodiversity research is stepping into a big data era with the rapid increase in the abundance of biodiversity data, especially the large number of species images. It has been a new trend and hot topic on how to utilize artificial intelligence to mine big biodiversity data to support wildlife observation and recognition. In this research, we integrate large numbers of species images, including higher plants, birds and insects, and use a state-of-the-art image deep learning technique to train species auto-recognition models. Currently, we get a model that can recognize more than 900 Chinese birds with top 1 accuracy 81% and top 5 accuracy 95% (top n accuracy means the probability that the correct answer presents in top n predicted results), and more models are coming soon. Based on these models, we developed a platform named Notes of Life (NOL, http://nol.especies.cn), which includes a website and a mobile application (app) for assisting biological scientists and citizen scientists to recognize and record wildlife. Users can upload their observation records and images of wildlife through our mobile app while they are investigating in the wild. The website is used for bulk data uploading and management. Species images can be classified by taxon-specific, plug-in recognition models that speed up the process of identification. There is an expert module in NOL where citizen scientists can work interactively with information provided by biological scientists, and post a species image identification request to experts when they cannot recognize the species by themselves or from models. The expert module is for improving the quality of citizen science data, and it is a supplement of the disadvantage of species auto-recognition models. Above all, NOL embraces the idea that scientific research supports citizen science and citizen science gives feedback to science, and of finding a sustainable way to collect increasingly more reliable data for biodiversity research.


Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 318
Author(s):  
Maria Aristeidou ◽  
Christothea Herodotou ◽  
Heidi L. Ballard ◽  
Lila Higgins ◽  
Rebecca F. Johnson ◽  
...  

Online community and citizen science (CCS) projects have broadened access to scientific research and enabled different forms of participation in biodiversity research; however, little is known about whether and how such opportunities are taken up by young people (aged 5–19). Furthermore, when they do participate, there is little research on whether their online activity makes a tangible contribution to scientific research. We addressed these knowledge gaps using quantitative analytical approaches and visualisations to investigate 249 youths’ contributions to CCS on the iNaturalist platform, and the potential for the scientific use of their contributions. We found that nearly all the young volunteers’ observations were ‘verifiable’ (included a photo, location, and date/time) and therefore potentially useful to biodiversity research. Furthermore, more than half were designated as ‘Research Grade’, with a community agreed-upon identification, making them more valuable and accessible to biodiversity science researchers. Our findings show that young volunteers with lasting participation on the platform and those aged 16–19 years are more likely to have a higher proportion of Research Grade observations than younger, or more ephemeral participants. This study enhances our understanding of young volunteers’ contributions to biodiversity research, as well as the important role professional scientists and data users can play in helping verify youths’ contributions to make them more accessible for biodiversity research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Silvia Spitta

Sandra Ramos (b. 1969) is one of the few artists to reflect critically on both sides of the Cuban di-lemma, fully embodying the etymological origins of the word in ancient Greek: di-, meaning twice, and lemma, denoting a form of argument involving a choice between equally unfavorable alternatives. Throughout her works she shines a light on the dilemmas faced by Cubans whether in Cuba or the United States, underlining the bad personal and political choices people face in both countries. During the hard 1990s, while still in Havana, the artist focused on the traumatic one-way journey into exile by thousands, as well as the experience of profound abandonment experienced by those who were left behind on the island. Today she lives in Miami and operates a studio there as well as one in Havana. Her initial disorientation in the USA has morphed into an acerbic representation and critique of the current administration and a deep concern with the environmental collapse we face. A buffoonlike Trumpito has joined el Bobo de Abela and Liborio in her gallery of comic characters derived from the rich Cuban graphic arts tradition where she was formed. While Cuba is now represented as a rotten cake with menacing flies hovering over it ready to pounce, a bombastic Trumpito marches across the world stage, trampling everything underfoot, a dollar sign for a face.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-119
Author(s):  
VLADIMIR GLEB NAYDONOV

The article considers the students’ tolerance as a spectrum of personal manifestations of respect, acceptance and correct understanding of the rich diversity of cultures of the world, values of others’ personality. The purpose of the study is to investgate education and the formation of tolerance among the students. We have compiled a training program to improve the level of tolerance for interethnic differences. Based on the statistical analysis of the data obtained, the most important values that are significant for different levels of tolerance were identified.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-100
Author(s):  
Bakare Adewale Muteeu

In pursuit of a capitalist world configuration, the causal phenomenon of globalization spread its cultural values in the built international system, as evidenced by the dichotomy between the rich North and the poor South. This era of cultural globalization is predominantly characterized by social inequality, economic inequality and instability, political instability, social injustice, and environmental change. Consequently, the world is empirically infected by divergent global inequalities among nations and people, as evidenced by the numerous problems plaguing humanity. This article seeks to understand Islam from the viewpoint of technological determinism in attempt to offset these diverging global inequalities for its “sociopolitical economy”1existence, as well as the stabilization of the interconnected world. Based upon the unifying view of microIslamics, the meaning of Islam and its globalizing perspectives are deciphered on a built micro-religious platform. Finally, the world is rebuilt via the Open World Peace (OWP) paradigm, from which the fluidity of open globalization is derived as a future causal phenomenon for seamlessly bridging (or contracting) the gaps between the rich-rich, rich-poor, poor-rich and poor-poor nations and people based on common civilization fronts.


Author(s):  
Дмитрий Викторович Кияйкин ◽  
Екатерина Андреевна Дворецкая

В статье раскрываются особенности сущностного понимания религиозного экстремизма и организационно-правовой профилактики данного явления. Обращено внимание на важность профилактической работы в рамках предупреждения антиобщественного (девиантного) поведения. Авторами рассматриваются причины и условия формирования религиозного экстремизма и наполнения им сети Интернет. Интернет-сообщество сталкивается с массовой информационной угрозой со стороны экстремистских организаций. Это связано с катастрофически быстрым распространением радикальных идеологий, всеобщей компьютеризацией и информатизацией общественных процессов, что облегчает процесс распространения материалов, носящих экстремистский характер. Религиозный экстремизм является источником вооруженных конфликтов во всем мире. Жертвами этого страшного явления, как правило, являются дети, подростки, молодые люди, кого легко заманить в сети идеологического обмана. Религиозный экстремизм опасен не только разрушением социальных объектов и ценностей, убийствами, террором. Гораздо опаснее сама идеология экстремизма, которая искажает мировоззрение и психику человека. В этих условиях эффективным является проведение профилактических мероприятий с молодым поколением, доведение до людей важности вопроса, осуществление контроля за неблагополучными семьями, обучение молодых лиц толерантности и уважению к окружающим людям. В работе определены направления работы правоохранительных органов по вопросу совершенствования механизма противодействия распространению экстремистской информации. Определена важность международного сотрудничества. The article reveals the features of the essential understanding of religious extremism and organizational and legal prevention of this phenomenon. Attention is drawn to the importance of preventive work as part of the prevention of antisocial (deviant) behavior. The authors consider the reasons and conditions for the formation of religious extremism and the filling of the Internet. The online community is facing a massive information threat from extremist organizations. This is due to the catastrophically lightning-fast spread of radical ideologies, the general computerization and informatization of social processes, which facilitates the process of distributing materials of an extremist nature. Religious extremism is a source of armed conflict throughout the world. The victims of this terrible phenomenon, as a rule, are children, adolescents, young people and girls - whom it is easy to lure into networks of ideological deception. Religious extremism is dangerous not only the destruction of social objects and values, murders, terror. The ideology of extremism itself, which distorts the worldview and the human psyche, is much more dangerous. Religious extremism is a source of armed conflict throughout the world. The victims of this terrible phenomenon, as a rule, are children, adolescents, young people and girls - whom it is easy to lure into networks of ideological deception. Religious extremism is dangerous not only the destruction of social objects and values, murders, terror. The ideology of extremism itself, which distorts the worldview and the human psyche, is much more dangerous.


Author(s):  
Bhumika Chauhan ◽  
Sisir Nandi

: The world is connected by the internet. It is very useful because we use Google to find out any new topic, to search new places, to quest updated research, and to get knowledge for learnng. The person around the world can communicate with each other through the Google video conference talk. Internet is frequently used in smartphones, laptops, desktop, and tablet. Excessive affinity towards internet-based online data collection, downloading pictures, videos, cyber relationships, and social media may produce addiction disorders followed by different symptoms such as behaviors change, mind disturbance, depression, anxiety, loss of appetite hyperactivity, sleeping disorder, headache, visual fatigueness, trafficking of memory, attention-deficit, loss of efficiency in work and social detachment which may be caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters. This is very difficult to control because of abnormal signal transduction in the brain. The present study is an attempt to discuss internet addiction disorder (IAD), internet gaming disorder (IGD), and give awareness to society to get rid of this addiction.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document