Biodiversity data

What information is available on biodiversity?

  • ocean depth, temp, water chemistry, solar radiation
  • terrestrial temps, first freeze, etc.
  • location data and changes over time for lots of species
    • lots of people recording observations

How were these data collected?

  • Inconsistancies in what’s recorded
    • eg. sometimes seeing dog or cat
    • how often do we record human
    • how easy is it to see something hard to see
    • how easy is it to overlook the obvious
  • Some data is collected by non-scientists, some by scientists
  • Data is often volunteered - where ever these people are
    • ebird, inaturalist
    • not totally reliable
  • Data may be collected systematically
    • Aquamaps - research studies - locations of species
    • Aquamaps - ocean depth, temperature, physical characteristics

Are there any ethical concerns about the collection or use of these data?

  • 1st world consumerism and impacts on 3rd world countries with high biodiversity

If there’s a model how is it constructed?

  • Think about what’s recorded - how data is collected
  • Aquamaps - predictive model of where a species might be
    • make correlations in known areas for known data
    • use correlations to predict response variable (# or probability or diversity) in unknown areas
  • model change over time of particular species
    • find predictive variables