Taxonomy/Identification App and Web Resource Exploration

 

Biodiversity Stewardship Identification App Blog Post

Song Sleuth Review

              Song Sleuth has long been a staple tool in my toolkit throughout my undergraduate and professional career in wildlife biology and natural resources management. From having used this app to identify bird calls from acoustic monitoring recorders, to having used it in the field to identify species of birds hidden I foliage or the tops of trees. In this post, I will be covering what I view to be the benefits and detriments of this app, a brief outline on how this app is used, and my final thoughts on this app as an identification tool for the aspiring birder and seasoned ornithologist alike. To start, the advantages of this app are twofold. Specifically, its greatest strength is its ability to record and save recordings of bird songs for later identification. In the field this is a wonderful feature, as unidentified bird calls can be recorded and then identified later when access to a bird sound library, like Cornell’s All about bird’s website, is available for finding a match. For its second advantage, when in the field it’s a great tool for getting a ballpark idea for identifying a species call to help inform one’s decisions. However, this is also where the apps biggest weakness lays, that being the app generally is unable to identify uncommon bird calls or even common ones if the recording is contaminated with other noises. Therefore, an inexperienced birder can make misidentifications should they take the app at its word.

 

              

(Image Source: Jacob Netzel)

To use this app, once purchased, is very simple. First you must set your location, this can be any state in the USA with the exception of Hawaii; it also cannot select specific Canadian provinces. Once done you can now use the meat and potatoes of this app, this would be the apps spectrograph. This feature offers a visual representation of all the sounds the microphone is picking up, and should you be able to identify bird calls by their spectrogram patterns you can identify birds in this manner. Once the app is open it will start recording. When you wish to begin hit the record button and a white box will appear around the borders of the spectrogram and when you have captured the call, you wish to identify hit the record button again to stop the recording process. The app will then auto select and shrink the box down over what it identifies as a bird call, from which you can then move the box around to fully select the call, and once done the app will generate a selection of birds it thinks the call belongs to based on the recording. On this page some sample calls are provided and are a quick way to check if the app has correctly guessed the species. In concluding, this app while it is not a tool to be overly relied upon as the final say in the field, is a great application for identifying saved recordings in a more controlled setting.

Identitree Review

              The second app which I would like to review in this blog post is Identitree starter kit. This application was specifically developed for students and campers in Camp Joy located in Clarksville, Ohio and therefore this app is useful only to those identifying trees in the Midwest United States or where such trees are present. The downsides of this app are few, minus the aforementioned geographic limitations, the only downside would be its short list of 30 trees that the application can help identify. However, for those in the Midwest new to dendrology or using a dichotomous key, will find this application a useful starting point. Other benefits include this apps built in glossary of terms and images to assist in identification, from which an individual can sharpen their skills.

Using this app after instillation is simple, One must simply open the app and follow its prompts through the dichotomous key and match the pictures to the specimen they are hoping to identify. In concluding, this apps strength is in its ease of use and accessibility and limited by its geographic range.

(Image source: Jacob Netzel)

INaturalist Review

              Last but not least I wanted to look at INaturalist. This app is a great source for civilian scientist data. Unlike the other two apps in this review, which are built specifically for species identification, INaturalist can however be used for this application through reviewing posts made by others in your survey site or any other area using the pictures provided in the pins on the map. The downside of this application is that if there aren’t any posts of what you’re attempting to identify within easy reach of your area the application isn’t that useful. There is however a middle button that will pull up all images of the pings found within your map and is an expedient way to sort through the pings in search of your target species. In conclusion, while not designed as an identification app, this tool is excellent for sorting through data of your area in search of specific species.

(Image Source: Jacob Netzel

Climate and Weather Information Selected for Ohio Wetland Project

 Foreword

Hello, This is a small curation of links to relevant resources for investigating wetlands in the state of Ohio, as well as general sources for collecting historical weather data. Hope you find these useful!

Climate and Weather Information

1.       https://ohiodnr.gov/discover-and-learn/land-water/rivers-streams-wetlands/hydrologic-atlas

The Hydrologic Atlas for Ohio is a reference for basic parameters of the hydrologic cycle within the state, and includes precipitation, temperature, streamflow, and water loss data. The website proports itself to be a source of hydrological data for individuals like groundwater scientists, water supply engineers, dam construction and design engineers, and environmental consultants.

2.       https://ohiodnr.gov/wps/wcm/connect/gov/e862a303-9048-45de-8332-978ab08e550d/HydroAtlas_plate1.jpg?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=neV-5sZ

The Hydro atlas on annual precipitation map, which is compiled from rainfall data collected between the periods of 1931-1980. Sets a good baseline for the state, however at this point the data is old.

3.       https://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/north-ridgeville/ohio/united-states/usoh1240

A website that provides a record of monthly, daily, and historical reference for weather data. Specifically, it provides average high and low temperatures in Fahrenheit, average precipitation and snowfall in inches. This sight also contains a handy Geo & Map feature useful for visualizing the data.

4.       https://www.weather.gov/wrh/climate?wfo=cle

A website run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that is useful for providing up to date weather data. It also provides climate prediction and variability, local data/resources, and Climate Resources.

5.       https://farm.bpcrc.osu.edu/fields/start

Perhaps the oddest source for weather data I’ve found, this application was designed to help farmers with fertilizer and manure application in order to prevent run-off. Specifically, it provides a 12 to 24 hour precipitation forecast, along with data for historical forecasts.

Web Soil Survey or Wetlands Data

1.       https://www.nawm.org/states/mapping/ohio_012307.pdf

This pdf is a useful source for providing an inventory of the coverage of current and past wetlands across the state. Paired with soils data this document is useful for planning wetland construction locations.

2.       https://fwsprimary.wim.usgs.gov/wetlands/apps/wetlands-mapper/

This is an interactive map service that provides detailed wetland and riparian area data across the united states. This service is especially useful for an in depth analysis, due to the fact it provides for almost every wetland in the USA. For my study area it provided classifications and links to useful reports.

3.       https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/Data/Water-Summary-Reports/National-Water-Summary-Wetland-Resources-Ohio.pdf

This report provides a map of wetlands spread across Ohio as of 1991. It also provides data on the hydrologic settings of Ohio and the geographic history of the state that has lead wetlands to develop where they are.

4.       https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsfs.2019.0129

This article covers the costs and benefits of conserving wetlands vs restoring wetlands and was a paper I selected in regards to Ohio’s strong push to restore its lost wetlands.

5.       https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X12000520

This article covers the temperature effects wetlands can have on their local areas.

6.       https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/86/1/2.06%20Ex.%20Wetland%20Soils.pdf

This article covers the impacts of restored wetlands have upon the soil they are built upon. I selected this article as its relevant to my survey site Sandy Ridge Reservation.

7.       https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/46839793/Functional_assessment_of_five_wetlands_c20160627-32143-1lq6426-libre.pdf?1467062194=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DFunctional_assessment_of_five_wetlands_c.pdf&Expires=1688257171&Signature=RT9hLTbSArd85Ryibram0z0YCmOGFogb0BwJIt6ztUKWNPN1OG6Xvy0KfqM5SJTCYrxvua3JPt6a1mLgiTvftdI-GJA-3UizHR8yCsWGZfovaOHjdhig~uwYBAVETtkI6UGYT3vtFLP3SiGgLrNwHuNtGS-WArfeV4iSRbpaKRjpJ3-wqdDan~NHkOcyqhUxwJ~p9lFNcsdDRidKbsJC-1raT92ZUKWdi4B6T6~QfqsDN3x~BYZLqTZNAcJ1XOGATKkLlWoDZXJL4g7DMIPbRjtdOxmYmwkd8FcH7A3t7nyoQ55KTSXEbEIA53RlEQfDoOzxTFNKrSi~zWUjCEr~xA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

This article covers the effectiveness of constructed wetlands within Ohio and was useful in regards to my survey site.

Exploring USDA's Web Soil Survey Website

 

Web Soil Survey Notes

Note One: Creating an Area of Interest

              Perhaps the most difficult step of using the Web Soil Survey is the first part, creating your area of interest. What I found to be the most effective method for finding an area of interest is using the built in address feature that allows for one to plug in an address and jump to that location. After locating my area, the taskbar tools make it easy to select an AOI using the two red polygon buttons next to View Extent.

Area of Interest (Image Source: Jacob Netzel)

Note two: Navigating The Area of Interest

              Next there is the task of navigating through the data the website has generated of your Area of interest. To do so one can cycle through the soil map and soil data explorer tabs at the top of the page. Soil map provides a base overview of the soil types of your AOE and clicking on each soil type in the left hand graph provides an overview of each soil type. Of great interest to me during this coursework is the data provided in the soils data explorer tab. Here one can look into soil suitability and limitations for use, soil properties and qualities, and ecological sites to name a few. Of these suitability and limitations for use offers a wide scope of useful information, such as vegetative productivity and soil health depletion; a useful collection of information in the field of wetland restoration. Ecological sites provides a bevy of useful information such as dominant land use type across each soil, and the dominant plant species.

Ecological sites of AOE and Extent of Wet Calcareous Depression (Image Source: Jacob Netzel)

 

Note 3: Exporting Soil Data

              The last feature of Web Soil Survey that I used for my examination of this website, was the download soils data feature. Having used this site a few times during my undergraduate, exporting soils data from this site was a simple matter of simply clicking on the download soils data tab, clicking on create download link, and exporting the files to a secure location in my computer. Going a step further I also decided to play with the data files by porting it over to a free GIS software DIVA, with which I created the map below.

Diva-GIS Soils Map (Image Source: Jacob Netzel)

Download Soils Data Page (Image Source: Jacob Netzel)

Exploration of Other GIS Software

 

Further exploring free, available options for GIS software, led me to DIVA GIS , a program specifically useful for mapping biodiversity. Installing this software was a relatively simple affair, and its user interface was straightforward. The Free spatial data provided through the DIVA website was useful for sourcing available data; including country and global level data, global climate, crop and species occurrence data, and global 90 meter satellite data. Of these, the ones I chose to explore were country level, and species occurrence data. First, with country level data, the DIVA website provides tools for selecting a country and refining the data selection down to administrative boundaries, roads, railroads, altitude, land cover, population density. Of these I selected land cover for the United States (image provided), which implemented well. Secondly, I explored adding species occurrence data through the link to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). From here eBird data was able to be accessed via Excel file, however this data in both csv and text format was unable to be uploaded into my map on DIVA; a problem I was unable to rectify. On the whole DIVA requires more GIS knowledge than Google My Maps, and there is some clunkiness inherent in the system and a lack tutorial help for solving problems that make this particular software difficult for me to use casually within my skill set.

DIVA (Image Source: Me)

Next, I explored the uses of ARCGIS Pro through Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, I was unable to install this software due to a Net software bug. Where I had the appropriately installed software however the installers refused to recognize the appropriate software on my computer.

ARCGIS Installer Error (Image Source: Me)

Google My Maps (Week 4 Assignment)

 Google My Maps is a decent free tool for the aspiring birdwatcher or natural resource management student conducting their own projects for assignments. The pin feature is wonderful for marking locations from which to conduct a variety of surveys. As it provides the latitude and longitude of points, and the description and image adding feature are also excellent additions in this regard. Another benefit is the add polygon feature, which is useful for delineating survey habitats, and for a rough approximation of the area of your survey site. Downsides to this feature is the inability to zoom in and out while making a polygon and the sites tendency to snap to certain zoom distances which makes it difficult to fully view certain locations without cutting of portions of the area. 

Ecology Slideshow Presentation

 

Draft of Biodiversity and the Importance of Biodiversity

 

Importance of Biodiversity Locally, Regionally, Nationally and Internationally.

First Draft of Biodiversity: Biodiversity is a unit of measurement, measuring the number of species in a given geographic area that can range in size from a garden to a continent.

Found Definition: “Species, genetic, and ecosystem diversity in an area, sometimes including associated abiotic components such as landscape features, drainage systems, and climate” (Swingland, 2001).

Second Draft of Biodiversity: Biodiversity is a unit of measurement, measuring the genetic, species, ecosystem, and abiotic diversity in an area ranging in size from a garden to a continent.

Locally

When examining the scientific literature and environmental policy decisions regarding the importance that biodiversity plays in both management and policy at the local level, there is a growing volume of material emphasizing management at this level of biodiversity. Specifically, its import can be seen with the organizations who do much of the research and protection at this level, as it is the local groups who “…are left to care for those smaller and less glamorous areas which are nevertheless of great importance to the biodiversity of local ecosystems” (Garrod & Wills, 1994).

Regionally

              At the regional level, maintaining high biodiversity through proper management and policy is also of great importance for natural resources management. This is impart due to the necessity to keep a large pool of species on the landscape to ensure the functioning of ecosystems on landscapes that are increasingly undergoing more intensive land use. Although even at high densities, its important to maintain high biodiversity due to the dispersal limitations imposed by habitat fragmentation. That if left unchecked can cause a feedback loop back at the local level, and so therefore “long-term maintenance of a given level of diversity at local scales requires a much higher diversity at regional scales” (Loreau, 2001).

Nationally and Internationally

              On the national and international stage is where a large bulk of the discussion on managing global biodiversity lays. Here is where the larger NGO, agencies, and laws are useful, such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, with 83% of its 193 members developing National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. What makes management important at this scale is the difficulty in protecting biodiversity in international areas such as the open ocean, with NGO’s like the Sea Shepards being integral for protecting these resources.

Works Cited

Garrod, G. D., and K. G. Willis. "Valuing biodiversity and nature conservation at a local level." Biodiversity & Conservation 3 (1994): 555-565.

Loreau, Michel, et al. "Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning: current knowledge and future challenges." science 294.5543 (2001): 804-808.

Swingland, Ian R. "Biodiversity, definition of." Encyclopedia of biodiversity 1 (2001): 377-391.