1 00:00:03,690 --> 00:00:04,860 [Kyle] Hey, I'm Kyle. 2 00:00:04,860 --> 00:00:06,300 I work with Schoodic Institute 3 00:00:06,300 --> 00:00:08,553 as an ecologist and data analyst. 4 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:11,370 And so today I just wanted to kind of talk 5 00:00:11,370 --> 00:00:13,140 about a project that we recently completed 6 00:00:13,140 --> 00:00:16,440 with the Acadia National Park in particular, 7 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:18,000 along, myself with my colleagues, 8 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,150 Nicholas Fisichelli and Abe Miller-Rushing. 9 00:00:21,150 --> 00:00:22,132 And so, yes, it's gonna be sort of an overview 10 00:00:22,132 --> 00:00:26,553 of the project and what we kind of did and why we did it. 11 00:00:28,050 --> 00:00:30,450 And to start, I guess we'll just introduce, 12 00:00:30,450 --> 00:00:32,340 if you're not familiar with Schoodic Institute, 13 00:00:32,340 --> 00:00:35,220 it's a 501c3 nonprofit organization 14 00:00:35,220 --> 00:00:37,353 that's based within Acadia National Park. 15 00:00:38,310 --> 00:00:39,420 You can see this. 16 00:00:39,420 --> 00:00:42,090 The typical area of Acadia is on the island here, 17 00:00:42,090 --> 00:00:43,470 next to Bar Harbor, right? 18 00:00:43,470 --> 00:00:45,030 But it also owns property here 19 00:00:45,030 --> 00:00:46,920 on this other peninsula to the east, 20 00:00:46,920 --> 00:00:49,643 and that's where our campus is located, right at the tip. 21 00:00:50,670 --> 00:00:52,500 And so what we do is basically 22 00:00:52,500 --> 00:00:55,050 we're Acadia National Park's primary partner 23 00:00:55,050 --> 00:00:58,080 in science and education, and together we manage 24 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:00,600 the largest of 18 natural National Park Service 25 00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:02,880 Research Learning Centers in the US, 26 00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:05,940 and our main work is supporting and conducting 27 00:01:05,940 --> 00:01:08,790 scientific research that's of importance to parks 28 00:01:08,790 --> 00:01:11,220 and other organizations in the area, 29 00:01:11,220 --> 00:01:13,020 providing professional development for teachers, 30 00:01:13,020 --> 00:01:14,760 training new generations of stewards 31 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:17,550 who will help conserve our future, 32 00:01:17,550 --> 00:01:19,113 natural and cultural heritage. 33 00:01:21,090 --> 00:01:24,202 And so this project's really based around forest monitoring 34 00:01:24,202 --> 00:01:26,160 and sort of early detection 35 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:29,460 of different stressors for forests. 36 00:01:29,460 --> 00:01:32,820 Acadia is very primarily forested, right? 37 00:01:32,820 --> 00:01:35,940 And the same sort of stressors that are facing 38 00:01:35,940 --> 00:01:38,010 a lot of the FEMC region 39 00:01:38,010 --> 00:01:40,650 is also starting to affect Acadia National Park. 40 00:01:40,650 --> 00:01:44,310 So things like climate change, human modified land use, 41 00:01:44,310 --> 00:01:45,930 invasive plants, forest pests, 42 00:01:45,930 --> 00:01:48,690 all these things that we heard about this morning as well, 43 00:01:48,690 --> 00:01:51,000 it's all sort of causing rapidly changing forests 44 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:53,880 and contributing to different causes of forest loss. 45 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:57,150 In Acadia, forests are threatened by the recent arrival 46 00:01:57,150 --> 00:02:00,960 of hemlock woolly adelgid this past winter 47 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:05,130 and impending arrival of emerald ash borer. 48 00:02:05,130 --> 00:02:08,310 There's also a near complete loss of red pine from the park 49 00:02:08,310 --> 00:02:10,020 due to red pine scale, 50 00:02:10,020 --> 00:02:11,850 and glossy buckthorn's becoming 51 00:02:11,850 --> 00:02:13,860 a really widespread invasive 52 00:02:13,860 --> 00:02:15,810 that's causing issues in the park. 53 00:02:15,810 --> 00:02:17,840 So, detecting these changes 54 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:19,527 is really becoming critical, right? 55 00:02:19,527 --> 00:02:21,300 And the sooner we can do that, 56 00:02:21,300 --> 00:02:23,700 the more likely we can implement 57 00:02:23,700 --> 00:02:26,850 a cost effective management action 58 00:02:26,850 --> 00:02:29,700 and limit these sort of disturbances from happening. 59 00:02:29,700 --> 00:02:33,960 So, on top of that, right, monitoring that we do currently 60 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:35,223 in a lot of situations, 61 00:02:36,690 --> 00:02:38,850 there's a lot of different challenges that come with these. 62 00:02:38,850 --> 00:02:41,850 Obviously it's critical to what we're trying to do. 63 00:02:41,850 --> 00:02:43,590 It's really an essential piece 64 00:02:43,590 --> 00:02:45,840 of finding what stressors are impacting forests 65 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:50,340 and determining what locations and actions need to be taken, 66 00:02:50,340 --> 00:02:52,590 focused on, in order to hopefully limit 67 00:02:52,590 --> 00:02:53,880 the impact of these disturbances. 68 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:56,760 But unfortunately, it seems like a lot 69 00:02:56,760 --> 00:02:59,070 of these forest disturbances go undetected 70 00:02:59,070 --> 00:03:01,120 until it's kind of becoming more 71 00:03:01,980 --> 00:03:03,210 established, right? 72 00:03:03,210 --> 00:03:07,590 And it's because we're kind of doing these, 73 00:03:07,590 --> 00:03:10,260 you know, monitoring focused on small plots 74 00:03:10,260 --> 00:03:11,310 that are kind of distributed 75 00:03:11,310 --> 00:03:13,410 throughout different protected areas. 76 00:03:13,410 --> 00:03:15,810 It requires a lot of labor and time, 77 00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:17,940 and it sometimes requires specialized skill 78 00:03:17,940 --> 00:03:20,640 depending on what we're monitoring for. 79 00:03:20,640 --> 00:03:25,380 So, what we kind of are proposing is this action 80 00:03:25,380 --> 00:03:28,260 of including citizen science in monitoring. 81 00:03:28,260 --> 00:03:30,690 So developing, what we've done is developed 82 00:03:30,690 --> 00:03:35,537 a detection and early monitoring sort of program 83 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:39,180 that really incorporates this citizen science, 84 00:03:39,180 --> 00:03:41,370 especially eBird and iNaturalist here. 85 00:03:41,370 --> 00:03:43,770 So, when you look at these sort of programs, 86 00:03:43,770 --> 00:03:46,680 you really notice that there's a ton of volunteers 87 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:49,860 just contributing without any sort of engagement 88 00:03:49,860 --> 00:03:51,600 from the park necessarily. 89 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:53,370 So, for example, Acadia has over 90 00:03:53,370 --> 00:03:57,390 538,000 observations of organisms 91 00:03:57,390 --> 00:04:01,140 from over 4,700 iNaturalist users 92 00:04:01,140 --> 00:04:05,463 and 6,600 eBird users, so that's a large number of people. 93 00:04:06,930 --> 00:04:09,930 And so we really saw these opportunities that the platforms 94 00:04:09,930 --> 00:04:12,300 are possibly presenting, and we wanted to try to find ways 95 00:04:12,300 --> 00:04:15,180 to sort of augment the ongoing monitoring 96 00:04:15,180 --> 00:04:16,880 that exists currently in the park. 97 00:04:18,390 --> 00:04:19,530 And so we brought this idea 98 00:04:19,530 --> 00:04:21,750 to the Acadia National Park Managers. 99 00:04:21,750 --> 00:04:24,450 Sort of pretty quickly we kind of had their support 100 00:04:24,450 --> 00:04:27,060 in this sort of project because they obviously felt 101 00:04:27,060 --> 00:04:28,980 that the more eyes out looking 102 00:04:28,980 --> 00:04:33,900 for things of importance, the better off, right, 103 00:04:33,900 --> 00:04:36,250 the more likely we are to detect these species. 104 00:04:37,230 --> 00:04:40,260 And so kind of the initial part of the process 105 00:04:40,260 --> 00:04:43,530 was figuring out what species are we actually interested in. 106 00:04:43,530 --> 00:04:46,620 Obviously the park has tons of different species 107 00:04:46,620 --> 00:04:48,000 that they're focused on, 108 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:51,900 but we wanted to really try to do a comprehensive list. 109 00:04:51,900 --> 00:04:54,060 And it's still kind of in the works, 110 00:04:54,060 --> 00:04:57,450 but right now we have 171 species 111 00:04:57,450 --> 00:04:59,040 that includes like invasive species 112 00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:01,260 like glossy buckthorn I just talked about, 113 00:05:01,260 --> 00:05:03,330 forest pests like hemlock woolly adelgid, 114 00:05:03,330 --> 00:05:05,970 and including a bunch of rare species 115 00:05:05,970 --> 00:05:07,080 that are native to the park 116 00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:10,803 and maybe populations are declining, such as red pine. 117 00:05:11,910 --> 00:05:13,620 We also included all of the species 118 00:05:13,620 --> 00:05:16,080 that would be found in and around Acadia National Park 119 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:17,220 that are threatened and endangered, 120 00:05:17,220 --> 00:05:18,870 so on the federal or state lists. 121 00:05:20,850 --> 00:05:25,530 And so a brief overview of what we did is work in R. 122 00:05:25,530 --> 00:05:29,070 It's what we primarily work in at Schoodic Institute, sorry, 123 00:05:29,070 --> 00:05:31,110 and it was just an easy choice for us 124 00:05:31,110 --> 00:05:33,300 to stay within this sort of language, 125 00:05:33,300 --> 00:05:35,970 and there's a lot of tools and functions 126 00:05:35,970 --> 00:05:38,280 easily accessed through that program. 127 00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:40,740 And so what we did was first build functions 128 00:05:40,740 --> 00:05:43,770 that allow us to access eBird and iNaturalist data 129 00:05:43,770 --> 00:05:44,910 through what they call APIs. 130 00:05:44,910 --> 00:05:46,350 It's basically just a way 131 00:05:46,350 --> 00:05:48,480 to access it quickly through script. 132 00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:50,070 And then we designed an interface 133 00:05:50,070 --> 00:05:51,450 to help display these results 134 00:05:51,450 --> 00:05:53,910 in a simple and easy way for park managers 135 00:05:53,910 --> 00:05:56,640 to quickly understand and take note of. 136 00:05:56,640 --> 00:06:00,270 And there's a program called R Markdown 137 00:06:00,270 --> 00:06:01,980 that allows us to write HTML, 138 00:06:01,980 --> 00:06:04,320 write R code that produces an HTML script, 139 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:05,700 so a typical webpage. 140 00:06:05,700 --> 00:06:07,050 We can style it however we want 141 00:06:07,050 --> 00:06:11,790 with typical CSS styling and produce these sort of nice, 142 00:06:11,790 --> 00:06:14,670 easily accessible pages for managers. 143 00:06:14,670 --> 00:06:18,960 We use GitHub as our project repository and version control. 144 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:22,590 So we have all our code and other important files on that. 145 00:06:22,590 --> 00:06:25,620 And using GitHub allows us to access certain tools, 146 00:06:25,620 --> 00:06:27,720 like GitHub Actions and GitHub Pages. 147 00:06:27,720 --> 00:06:31,260 And so Pages allows us to host that webpage for free, 148 00:06:31,260 --> 00:06:34,740 as well as Actions allowing us to automate 149 00:06:34,740 --> 00:06:37,170 the running of these functions 150 00:06:37,170 --> 00:06:39,210 and the updating of these pages 151 00:06:39,210 --> 00:06:42,810 without any sort of input from me or anybody else. 152 00:06:42,810 --> 00:06:44,310 It just does it automatically. 153 00:06:45,780 --> 00:06:47,790 And this is sort of the final product 154 00:06:47,790 --> 00:06:49,320 that we have at the moment. 155 00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:51,753 So this is just an example from a few weeks ago. 156 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:54,630 And this is just, you know, title page, 157 00:06:55,500 --> 00:06:58,290 and it quickly goes down into a map of observations. 158 00:06:58,290 --> 00:07:01,800 So park managers can go through this page, 159 00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:03,210 explore the different locations 160 00:07:03,210 --> 00:07:06,340 and see what species we're seeing where pretty specifically 161 00:07:07,380 --> 00:07:09,840 depending upon the error that's associated 162 00:07:09,840 --> 00:07:11,790 with like iNaturalist observations sometimes. 163 00:07:11,790 --> 00:07:14,283 But really specific points in general. 164 00:07:15,300 --> 00:07:17,850 And then we broke it down into sort of four categories. 165 00:07:17,850 --> 00:07:21,510 So our first is like the forest pests and invasive species. 166 00:07:21,510 --> 00:07:23,730 So, and this week there was only 167 00:07:23,730 --> 00:07:25,260 a colt's foot that was seen, 168 00:07:25,260 --> 00:07:27,750 but what we're finding is each week, 169 00:07:27,750 --> 00:07:30,600 there's upwards of 10 different observations 170 00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:32,661 of some sort of invasive or pest species, 171 00:07:32,661 --> 00:07:35,400 and what it has done so far 172 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:37,920 is really direct future observation efforts. 173 00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:40,950 And this past summer we started integrating that. 174 00:07:40,950 --> 00:07:43,290 We've had Earthwatch groups going out to certain areas 175 00:07:43,290 --> 00:07:46,110 and we're targeted efforts looking at 176 00:07:46,110 --> 00:07:48,390 or looking for invasive species, 177 00:07:48,390 --> 00:07:50,640 and I think that's gonna become more and more common. 178 00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:51,840 The park's really interested in this, 179 00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:56,220 and it'll help inform the park's invasive teams well 180 00:07:56,220 --> 00:07:59,463 on specific locations of species. 181 00:08:01,530 --> 00:08:03,240 Threatened and endangered species. 182 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:04,920 Right now there's no, on this example, 183 00:08:04,920 --> 00:08:06,090 there's no federal species, 184 00:08:06,090 --> 00:08:09,870 but three different observations of state threatened species 185 00:08:09,870 --> 00:08:13,800 as well as Acadia's home to a pretty good population 186 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:15,650 of state-endangered peregrine falcon. 187 00:08:17,550 --> 00:08:20,100 Rare native species, there weren't a ton this past week, 188 00:08:20,100 --> 00:08:21,960 or in this specific example, 189 00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:25,680 but to date, over 67% of the species known to be in the park 190 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:28,380 have been documented by citizen scientists 191 00:08:28,380 --> 00:08:30,363 on eBird and iNaturalist only. 192 00:08:31,470 --> 00:08:33,960 And we also did sort of a pilot program 193 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:36,720 kind of determining if species had been recorded in the park 194 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:39,630 and seeing if any new observations are appearing. 195 00:08:39,630 --> 00:08:43,230 So this one, we used a bunch of different sources. 196 00:08:43,230 --> 00:08:45,090 Of course, all the iNaturalist and eBird records 197 00:08:45,090 --> 00:08:47,640 through all time, as well as iDigBio 198 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:50,010 and scanned digitization records, 199 00:08:50,010 --> 00:08:51,630 and then working with the park managers 200 00:08:51,630 --> 00:08:52,530 for different datasets, 201 00:08:52,530 --> 00:08:55,980 like bumblebee bioblitzes that they've done in the past. 202 00:08:55,980 --> 00:09:00,660 And so since this program went live roughly in April 203 00:09:00,660 --> 00:09:02,703 of this past year of 2023 this year, 204 00:09:03,690 --> 00:09:05,400 we haven't seen any new species 205 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:08,400 that haven't been incorporated on this list that we created. 206 00:09:10,410 --> 00:09:12,750 And the other aspect of this is that park managers 207 00:09:12,750 --> 00:09:15,090 really wanted a way to be consistent 208 00:09:15,090 --> 00:09:16,590 and clear with the communication 209 00:09:16,590 --> 00:09:18,330 of this program and then these products, 210 00:09:18,330 --> 00:09:21,600 so we were able to work with that GitHub Actions again 211 00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:24,840 to, and this other package in R called Blastula, 212 00:09:24,840 --> 00:09:28,500 which allows us to automate email alerts basically. 213 00:09:28,500 --> 00:09:31,290 And so we kind of agreed on a timeline. 214 00:09:31,290 --> 00:09:33,000 In this case they wanted it once a week 215 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:36,390 so every Monday when they come in it's right in their inbox. 216 00:09:36,390 --> 00:09:38,430 They can click on this. This is what they see. 217 00:09:38,430 --> 00:09:41,040 They can click on the the button to go to the report, 218 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:43,643 and then they'll be able to explore what we just saw. 219 00:09:45,270 --> 00:09:47,910 And what we did was really develop this all 220 00:09:47,910 --> 00:09:51,240 with adaptability in mind. 221 00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:54,270 It's really, kind of working with these programs 222 00:09:54,270 --> 00:09:55,890 the way we did with GitHub and R, 223 00:09:55,890 --> 00:09:58,650 it allows us to make changes really easily. 224 00:09:58,650 --> 00:10:00,660 So since it's all in script form and it's there, 225 00:10:00,660 --> 00:10:02,190 it's easy to just change a little something 226 00:10:02,190 --> 00:10:03,090 and then rerun it. 227 00:10:04,020 --> 00:10:07,830 So, you know, it's easy to make new data visualizations, 228 00:10:07,830 --> 00:10:10,230 add new species to the list, 229 00:10:10,230 --> 00:10:12,659 modify the geographic range that we're looking at, 230 00:10:12,659 --> 00:10:16,230 or change the schedule of the email alerts, right? 231 00:10:16,230 --> 00:10:18,270 And it was also built with transferability 232 00:10:18,270 --> 00:10:20,400 in terms of the geographic location. 233 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:22,800 So it's not necessarily specific to parks. 234 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:25,560 It's really easy to move it to any sort of protected area 235 00:10:25,560 --> 00:10:26,910 as long as there's a shapefile. 236 00:10:26,910 --> 00:10:28,410 That's all it really requires. 237 00:10:31,462 --> 00:10:33,570 So yeah, basically working with citizen scientists 238 00:10:33,570 --> 00:10:35,910 in this capacity, we feel that we can, 239 00:10:35,910 --> 00:10:38,130 it's a potential to augment current monitoring 240 00:10:38,130 --> 00:10:40,350 while keeping costs low, 241 00:10:40,350 --> 00:10:43,260 engage the community in this sort of critical science, 242 00:10:43,260 --> 00:10:45,090 and detect species at a scaling rate 243 00:10:45,090 --> 00:10:48,510 that's maybe not feasible with just our current monitoring. 244 00:10:48,510 --> 00:10:50,850 There's a lot of different benefits that I feel 245 00:10:50,850 --> 00:10:53,490 to incorporating citizen science like these projects, 246 00:10:53,490 --> 00:10:56,610 and one of my favorites is sort of the engagement 247 00:10:56,610 --> 00:10:58,290 of people in meaningful science 248 00:10:58,290 --> 00:10:59,790 and connection with nature, right? 249 00:10:59,790 --> 00:11:04,200 And we heard about this in the talks earlier. 250 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:06,210 So the one thing that, though, 251 00:11:06,210 --> 00:11:08,280 is that we require active communication 252 00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:10,530 that's kind of between whoever's running these projects 253 00:11:10,530 --> 00:11:13,500 and the people that are volunteering for them, right? 254 00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:15,400 If we can successfully communicate 255 00:11:16,260 --> 00:11:18,480 how important the people's time is 256 00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:21,690 and showing them that we're using products 257 00:11:21,690 --> 00:11:23,790 that they're contributing to 258 00:11:23,790 --> 00:11:26,280 for actual science and management, 259 00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:28,630 then it sort of creates this positive feedback. 260 00:11:29,940 --> 00:11:32,430 Every aspect of this project as well is easily modified 261 00:11:32,430 --> 00:11:35,340 to suit the needs of park managers or any manager 262 00:11:35,340 --> 00:11:36,693 of any protected area, 263 00:11:39,270 --> 00:11:44,100 and it's really easy to use this sort of program anywhere 264 00:11:44,100 --> 00:11:45,990 that there's any sort of citizen science data. 265 00:11:45,990 --> 00:11:46,980 So we can expand it. 266 00:11:46,980 --> 00:11:49,233 to other sort of citizen science databases, 267 00:11:50,190 --> 00:11:52,770 and as long as there's people there, 268 00:11:52,770 --> 00:11:55,200 that's something that we can definitely add. 269 00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:56,820 And with that, I'd just like to say thank you 270 00:11:56,820 --> 00:11:59,220 to the many people who assisted us throughout this project, 271 00:11:59,220 --> 00:12:01,260 and to the National Park Foundation 272 00:12:01,260 --> 00:12:02,550 for making this project possible 273 00:12:02,550 --> 00:12:05,043 in part through their Capacity Building Grant. 274 00:12:06,333 --> 00:12:09,333 (audience applauds) 275 00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:12,690 [Host] We have time for questions. 276 00:12:12,690 --> 00:12:13,980 I just wanna say that anybody online 277 00:12:13,980 --> 00:12:15,570 can put their question in the chat, 278 00:12:15,570 --> 00:12:18,660 and Duncan will read it off when we have a break, 279 00:12:18,660 --> 00:12:21,693 and the person, the people in the room questions. 280 00:12:24,570 --> 00:12:25,710 [Kyle] Yes, in the orange. 281 00:12:25,710 --> 00:12:28,770 [Participant] That was slick, so thank you. 282 00:12:28,770 --> 00:12:30,600 And I'm curious about that feedback part. 283 00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:32,970 It's cool that the managers are getting a report, 284 00:12:32,970 --> 00:12:34,800 but are you able to communicate 285 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:37,350 with the iNaturalist people or the eBird people 286 00:12:37,350 --> 00:12:40,240 and say, "Hey, we used your data, and this is how?" 287 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:42,837 [Kyle] Yeah, so that's something that we're working on, 288 00:12:42,837 --> 00:12:46,500 and this was sort of, the grant covered this 289 00:12:46,500 --> 00:12:49,083 and sort of an initial product that we created 290 00:12:49,083 --> 00:12:50,880 that I haven't talked about, 291 00:12:50,880 --> 00:12:53,460 but it's something that we need to do more of, of course. 292 00:12:53,460 --> 00:12:55,440 The other aspect of this grant project 293 00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:59,040 was a display that we put in the Welcome Center. 294 00:12:59,040 --> 00:12:59,873 It's very similar. 295 00:12:59,873 --> 00:13:01,770 It sort of pulls iNaturalist data. 296 00:13:01,770 --> 00:13:05,400 If you think of like when you go into say like a refuge 297 00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:07,410 and you see like the list of recent sightings, 298 00:13:07,410 --> 00:13:09,660 and people have written down stuff, it's sort of like that, 299 00:13:09,660 --> 00:13:11,010 but tailored to a little bit more 300 00:13:11,010 --> 00:13:12,630 of a fancy like webpage version. 301 00:13:12,630 --> 00:13:15,780 So people come, whoever visits the Welcome Center in Acadia, 302 00:13:15,780 --> 00:13:17,130 specifically right now it's only 303 00:13:17,130 --> 00:13:19,080 on the Schoodic site where we are, 304 00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:21,270 but whoever comes into our Welcome Center 305 00:13:21,270 --> 00:13:23,040 can scroll down and see and explore 306 00:13:23,040 --> 00:13:24,870 on this touch screen display. 307 00:13:24,870 --> 00:13:26,820 So that's one way that we're trying to do it, 308 00:13:26,820 --> 00:13:30,060 but we need to work more on, for sure, yeah. 309 00:13:30,060 --> 00:13:31,560 We'll go with the black first. 310 00:13:33,030 --> 00:13:34,830 [Attendee] So many questions. 311 00:13:34,830 --> 00:13:36,588 How do you get your volunteers, 312 00:13:36,588 --> 00:13:39,520 and how do you handle sensitive information? 313 00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:40,583 Like say you have rare plant 314 00:13:40,583 --> 00:13:43,350 and you don't want people to know the location information? 315 00:13:43,350 --> 00:13:46,890 Like, do you have geographic location information 316 00:13:46,890 --> 00:13:47,760 or is it blurred out, 317 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:50,040 or you know, generalized on iNaturalist? 318 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:51,332 [Kyle] No, great questions. 319 00:13:51,332 --> 00:13:54,480 iNaturalist and eBird have filters in place already 320 00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:56,130 for that sort of stuff. 321 00:13:56,130 --> 00:13:58,620 If park managers specifically 322 00:13:58,620 --> 00:14:00,900 were, you know, were, 323 00:14:00,900 --> 00:14:03,180 I mean, they would have to... 324 00:14:03,180 --> 00:14:06,630 No matter what, right, if iNaturalist isn't already 325 00:14:06,630 --> 00:14:09,180 sort of like filtering for those, 326 00:14:09,180 --> 00:14:11,190 then it's gonna be accessible publicly. 327 00:14:11,190 --> 00:14:14,220 So right now, it's kind of relying upon iNaturalist 328 00:14:14,220 --> 00:14:15,720 to choose those, and they do have 329 00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:17,640 a lot of those sort of filters in place. 330 00:14:17,640 --> 00:14:18,690 Same with eBird. 331 00:14:18,690 --> 00:14:20,610 And then, I'm forgetting the other part. 332 00:14:20,610 --> 00:14:22,500 [Attendee] How do you get your volunteers, authors? 333 00:14:22,500 --> 00:14:24,850 [Kyle] So right now, right, we're really not 334 00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:27,113 advertising. 335 00:14:27,113 --> 00:14:30,360 It's just sort of the draw of the park. 336 00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:32,130 In this case, I think that's really bringing in 337 00:14:32,130 --> 00:14:34,680 a lot of people, so it's just completely 338 00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:37,320 kind of passive monitoring that's happening. 339 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:40,710 However, of course, active management 340 00:14:40,710 --> 00:14:44,160 or active engagement of people would then tailor 341 00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:45,900 towards maybe a more specific product 342 00:14:45,900 --> 00:14:47,400 that could be even more effective. 343 00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:48,840 So it's something that the park 344 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:50,100 is looking into more and more, 345 00:14:50,100 --> 00:14:51,870 and it's something that we at Schoodic Institute 346 00:14:51,870 --> 00:14:54,030 have progressed this past summer, 347 00:14:54,030 --> 00:14:57,420 with our example of using Earthwatch volunteers to do that 348 00:14:57,420 --> 00:14:59,100 in a few spots in the park. 349 00:14:59,100 --> 00:15:00,420 [Attendee] Does the Visitor Center, though, 350 00:15:00,420 --> 00:15:03,787 say, like, "If you collect iNaturalist data, 351 00:15:03,787 --> 00:15:05,280 "it will be seen on this monitor?" 352 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:07,290 Like, so are people seeing that information 353 00:15:07,290 --> 00:15:08,840 as they're going into the park? 354 00:15:09,690 --> 00:15:11,970 [Kyle] Only if they visit our center at this point, 355 00:15:11,970 --> 00:15:14,833 but we do want to expand it further on. 356 00:15:16,422 --> 00:15:18,330 We'll go with Georgia. 357 00:15:18,330 --> 00:15:21,210 [Georgia] I'm wondering about the quality control 358 00:15:21,210 --> 00:15:22,320 around certain species. 359 00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:25,560 Like some of the, you know, iNaturalist obviously 360 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:27,780 has the research grade. 361 00:15:27,780 --> 00:15:29,493 That's one piece, but then, 362 00:15:30,690 --> 00:15:32,160 you know, are there certain species 363 00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:34,470 that it's really hard to tell from a picture 364 00:15:34,470 --> 00:15:38,160 or that you really wanna make sure you're checking first 365 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:39,903 before you're moving it to the, 366 00:15:40,777 --> 00:15:44,310 "Yes, this is an invasive beetle or whatever?" 367 00:15:44,310 --> 00:15:48,030 Or is there any in between? 368 00:15:48,030 --> 00:15:49,440 [Kyle] Basically what happens right now 369 00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:53,460 is this list that you saw, whenever they filter for 370 00:15:53,460 --> 00:15:55,650 and, or presented it for the managers to see, 371 00:15:55,650 --> 00:15:59,100 it's a list of everything, just so we can capture 372 00:15:59,100 --> 00:16:01,650 any possibility of species, 373 00:16:01,650 --> 00:16:03,810 but they do double check themselves 374 00:16:03,810 --> 00:16:06,600 before ever like taking any action. 375 00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:09,873 Yeah, that's just an Understanding that it came to, yeah. 376 00:16:12,657 --> 00:16:13,500 [Guest] These functions and scripts 377 00:16:13,500 --> 00:16:14,400 that you've built in R, 378 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:16,800 are these available publicly to share? 379 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:17,633 [Kyle] They are, yeah. 380 00:16:17,633 --> 00:16:19,200 They're accessible on GitHub, yeah. 381 00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:20,070 [Guest] Do you have, nice. 382 00:16:20,070 --> 00:16:22,050 Could you share a link for, like, the Github? 383 00:16:22,050 --> 00:16:23,220 [Kyle] I think we could. 384 00:16:23,220 --> 00:16:25,810 I have to clear that unfortunately with the (indistinct). 385 00:16:25,810 --> 00:16:26,643 (audience laughs) 386 00:16:26,643 --> 00:16:27,476 Yes. 387 00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:29,820 [Partaker] Have you thought about incorporating 388 00:16:29,820 --> 00:16:34,230 other similar databases like iMapInvasives 389 00:16:34,230 --> 00:16:37,920 that target specifically invasive species or? 390 00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:39,990 [Kyle] Yeah, it's something that we've considered 391 00:16:39,990 --> 00:16:41,280 but haven't done yet. 392 00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:44,610 So, obviously the grant is now over at this point, 393 00:16:44,610 --> 00:16:47,100 so its current funding to keep progressing it is out, 394 00:16:47,100 --> 00:16:47,940 but we're definitely interested 395 00:16:47,940 --> 00:16:49,620 in pursuing more opportunities 396 00:16:49,620 --> 00:16:53,213 to start doing something like that, so yeah. 397 00:16:53,213 --> 00:16:54,493 Yeah. 398 00:16:54,493 --> 00:16:55,326 [Viewer] I was curious, 399 00:16:55,326 --> 00:16:58,590 did any of your app partners have either the ability 400 00:16:58,590 --> 00:17:01,620 or the willingness to identify 401 00:17:01,620 --> 00:17:03,053 local projects like these 402 00:17:03,053 --> 00:17:04,560 so that you could work with them. 403 00:17:04,560 --> 00:17:07,710 Did someone, I mean, in Acadia you could have obviously 404 00:17:07,710 --> 00:17:09,390 your own advertisements about it, 405 00:17:09,390 --> 00:17:11,610 but you come to an area that's been flagged 406 00:17:11,610 --> 00:17:12,750 for this type of opportunity. 407 00:17:12,750 --> 00:17:14,310 If you have your app, it lets you know 408 00:17:14,310 --> 00:17:17,460 that something is not going in that area, what it is. 409 00:17:17,460 --> 00:17:20,673 Like, is that something that they have any ability to do? 410 00:17:21,810 --> 00:17:22,643 [Kyle] I don't know 411 00:17:22,643 --> 00:17:24,450 if I'm fully understanding the question. 412 00:17:24,450 --> 00:17:26,400 [Viewer] So, you're geotagged obviously 413 00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:27,900 for your own observations 414 00:17:27,900 --> 00:17:29,220 when you're using any of those apps. 415 00:17:29,220 --> 00:17:31,710 This is something that would identify, 416 00:17:31,710 --> 00:17:35,250 you've identified a shapefile for Acadia, for example. 417 00:17:35,250 --> 00:17:37,290 Anything, any observations coming from that area 418 00:17:37,290 --> 00:17:38,257 could then, for example, 419 00:17:38,257 --> 00:17:40,087 "Hey that was something it did flag. 420 00:17:40,087 --> 00:17:42,487 "Hey, this is a project ongoing in Acadia National Park. 421 00:17:42,487 --> 00:17:45,570 "These are the sorts of things they're looking for," 422 00:17:45,570 --> 00:17:46,680 to make it less passive. 423 00:17:46,680 --> 00:17:47,513 [Kyle] Right. 424 00:17:47,513 --> 00:17:48,780 No, I mean, we haven't done that, 425 00:17:48,780 --> 00:17:50,880 but I do think that's a good opportunity. 426 00:17:50,880 --> 00:17:52,380 I don't know what sort of tools exist 427 00:17:52,380 --> 00:17:53,460 within iNaturalist for that. 428 00:17:53,460 --> 00:17:54,750 Like with, I don't know if you can send out 429 00:17:54,750 --> 00:17:58,598 messages like that to the projects or not, but, 430 00:17:58,598 --> 00:18:00,426 I'm getting a maybe, a yes back there. (laughs) 431 00:18:00,426 --> 00:18:01,259 -Yeah. -So yeah, 432 00:18:01,259 --> 00:18:04,320 maybe that's a good opportunity to pursue in the future. 433 00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:05,910 [Host] I think we do have one online question. 434 00:18:05,910 --> 00:18:06,743 [Duncan] We did. 435 00:18:06,743 --> 00:18:08,017 This is from Sylvia Chin. 436 00:18:08,017 --> 00:18:08,917 "This is really exciting. 437 00:18:08,917 --> 00:18:11,107 "Can you use these data in a quantitative way 438 00:18:11,107 --> 00:18:13,650 "or is it mostly presence or absence?" 439 00:18:13,650 --> 00:18:16,740 [Kyle] In, I mean, at large, definitely. 440 00:18:16,740 --> 00:18:17,850 In this sort of situation, 441 00:18:17,850 --> 00:18:19,440 it is mainly just presence/absence, 442 00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:22,340 but that's what the park was most interested at this time. 443 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:26,310 But I mean, yes, like, we have the quality grades 444 00:18:26,310 --> 00:18:28,560 that exist within iNaturalist and eBird, right? 445 00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:30,877 You know, there's complete checklists in eBird 446 00:18:30,877 --> 00:18:34,260 that enable us to sort of do like occupancy analysis 447 00:18:34,260 --> 00:18:37,080 and things like that, where you can actually assume 448 00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:39,990 non-detection based on the lack of presence. 449 00:18:39,990 --> 00:18:42,090 If someone was fully, 450 00:18:42,090 --> 00:18:44,190 and you check the box saying you are actually out there 451 00:18:44,190 --> 00:18:46,320 for this amount of time, this distance, 452 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,120 and this is exactly what you did see, 453 00:18:48,120 --> 00:18:49,650 like, so that's one aspect. 454 00:18:49,650 --> 00:18:50,483 And then there's of course 455 00:18:50,483 --> 00:18:53,073 the iNaturalist research grade quality stuff too. 456 00:18:54,270 --> 00:18:55,103 So, 457 00:18:56,340 --> 00:18:57,960 within reason, there is certainly 458 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:00,330 a lot of opportunity for more quantitative 459 00:19:00,330 --> 00:19:01,620 and like professional science 460 00:19:01,620 --> 00:19:03,270 with these sorts of science data. 461 00:19:07,530 --> 00:19:09,240 [Host] Great. We're just right on time so that, 462 00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:10,467 oh, you have, sorry, you have one more question? 463 00:19:10,467 --> 00:19:11,300 -Sorry. -Yeah, we have time 464 00:19:11,300 --> 00:19:12,133 -for one more. -Just building off 465 00:19:12,133 --> 00:19:14,130 of some of the ideas from earlier, 466 00:19:14,130 --> 00:19:16,590 you know, Acadia gets a ton of visitation 467 00:19:16,590 --> 00:19:20,160 in a relatively small area, land base. 468 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:22,410 I'm curious on like what challenges you see 469 00:19:22,410 --> 00:19:25,380 for translating this to a different area of property 470 00:19:25,380 --> 00:19:27,030 that doesn't get that visitation 471 00:19:27,030 --> 00:19:30,150 or is more spread out 472 00:19:30,150 --> 00:19:33,000 and maybe, you know, like what threshold you see 473 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,825 to this working there, or how you would combat that? 474 00:19:36,825 --> 00:19:37,658 [Kyle] No, it's a great question, 475 00:19:37,658 --> 00:19:39,660 and something that we've also pursued in the project 476 00:19:39,660 --> 00:19:41,790 is we created the same sort of products 477 00:19:41,790 --> 00:19:43,800 for Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument 478 00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:45,630 up near Baxter State Park in Maine. 479 00:19:45,630 --> 00:19:48,630 Much newer, a lot big, well, not a lot bigger 480 00:19:48,630 --> 00:19:51,690 in terms of area, and a lot less visitation, right? 481 00:19:51,690 --> 00:19:56,100 The products still work, but maybe to a lesser degree. 482 00:19:56,100 --> 00:19:58,980 And the one thing there is I think in these areas 483 00:19:58,980 --> 00:20:02,400 that maybe don't have quite the same amount of engagement, 484 00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:03,950 the one thing that we do see is 485 00:20:05,550 --> 00:20:07,110 the number of engagement, I mean, right? 486 00:20:07,110 --> 00:20:08,610 We do see consistent, 487 00:20:08,610 --> 00:20:11,463 more consistent engagement with the same volunteers. 488 00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:15,480 So, if we can build sort of like a good team 489 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:17,160 that's really consistent and really reliable, 490 00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:18,840 that might be sort of more of the way 491 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:19,673 that you have to do it. 492 00:20:19,673 --> 00:20:22,260 And that might require a little bit more of an investment 493 00:20:22,260 --> 00:20:24,560 from like the main interest in that area, but.