Snapshot Serengeti Talk

"Population estimates" - Forwarded from Wildcam Gorongosa

  • zorglax by zorglax

    Hello everyone. I wonder if perhaps someone here might be able to answer this question from a teacher.


    (Original post at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/wildcam-gorongosa/talk/80/81006)

    "I am going to be using WildCam data with my AP Biology students to measure species richness and diversity in different habitat types. When looking at the data set I notice that each picture in a series is counted as a different entry, so the frequency of that species may be inflated. For example, there were four pictures of a Nyala taken just a few seconds apart- obviously the same individual. However, when we analyze the data that individual would be counted four times.
    How can/should we correct for this? I am not looking for a super time consuming way to get more accurate data, I just want to be able to give my students an answer for what could be done if we were using this data for "real" research."


    (I'd think that the structures of the "datasets" from S.S. and W.G. are similar, has anyone actively compared the two before? Anyway, just in case, these are the columns in the W.G. datasets:

    image_id,camera,longitude,latitude,date,month,year,season,time_period,veg_type,
    human_structure,distance_human_m,water_type,distance_water_m,species,species_count,percentage_resting,
    percentage_standing,percentage_moving,percentage_eating,percentage_interacting,young_present,horns and image_url.

    The data is available through the "Lab", which is at https://lab.wildcamgorongosa.org. Also, please note that on W.G. only 1 image is shown at a time, instead of 3 on S.S.)

    Posted

  • maricksu by maricksu moderator in response to zorglax's comment.

    Hi zorglax! Very interesting, would be great to help but at least I am not familiar with this and have not done it.

    I saw from the original post, that there has been now added very good help by one of your volunteers, so not sure if help still needed. I still sent a message, with this link, to our scientist aliburchard if she wants to add something 😃

    Posted