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Assessing Saint Louis River citizen science and biodiversity using the Global Biodiversity Information Framework
Citation:
Hollenhorst, T. AND L. Votava. Assessing Saint Louis River citizen science and biodiversity using the Global Biodiversity Information Framework. St. Louis River Summit, Superior, WI, March 05 - 06, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Citizen science activities and applications have increased exponentially in recent years. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity as we develop ways to effectively harness all this information in a useful way. Here we explore the concept of the extended specimen record, along with the potential of citizen science data as provided by various providers including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility to assess and identify biodiversity and citizen science participation.
Description:
The amount of citizen science activities, applications and data have increased exponentially in the last few years. Fortunately, most of this data has been digitized, or is collected electronically through smart phone applications and websites, so that it is quickly archived and shared via platforms like Inaturalist.org, citsci.org e-bird.org etc. Many of these platforms also network with other collection networks like the Biodiversity Collections Network (https://bcon.aibs.org), the Botanical Information and Ecology Network (http://bien.nceas.ucsb.edu/bien) or the Global Biodiversity Information Framework (www.gbif.org). These organizations strive to digitize and organize digital biological collections, to integrate them through a web accessible networks using shared standards and formats. These networks provide the foundation for what Webster (2017) proposed as the extended specimen. The extended specimen expands the physical specimen with an augmented digitized record, including field recordings, images, lab analyses, collection methods and location information. To explore the potential of these types of data we accessed more than 500,000 records from the Global Biodiversity Information Framework website (www.gbif.org) for occurrences within the Saint Louis River Watershed. We’ll discuss the abundance of available citizen science data and their sources, available augmented records (extended specimens), and how these can be used to identify hotspots of biodiversity and citizen science participation.