Diario del proyecto Australasian Fishes

Archivos de diario de mayo 2022

08 de mayo de 2022

Scientific paper discusses the Australasian Fishes Project

In March 2022, colleagues at the University of New South Wales published a paper in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation (View the paper). The paper is titled "Many cameras make light work: opportunistic photographs of rare species in iNaturalist complement structured surveys of reef fish to better understand species richness."
In the abstract of the paper, the senior author, Dr Christopher Roberts @cj_roberts (see photo above) and his co-authors state that "Citizen science is on the rise, with growing numbers of initiatives, participants and increasing interest from the broader scientific community. iNaturalist is an example of a successful citizen science platform that enables users to opportunistically capture and share biodiversity observations." I don't think any of us would disagree with that statement.
They "compared the opportunistic fish photographs from iNaturalist to those obtained from structured surveys [conducted by] Reef Life Survey at eight study reefs in Sydney, Australia over twelve years.", and found that "iNaturalist recorded 1.2 to 5.5 times more fish species than structured surveys resulting in significantly greater annual species richness at half of the reefs, with the remainder showing no significant difference."
In terms of ease of use, they stated that "iNaturalist likely recorded more species due to having simple methods, which allowed for broad participation with substantially more iNaturalist observation events (e.g., dives) than structured surveys over the same period."
Opportunistic observations such as those uploaded into iNaturalist have limitations but the authors state that "These results demonstrate the value of opportunistic citizen science platforms for documenting fish species richness, particularly where access and use of the marine environment is common and communities have the time and resources for expensive recreational activities (i.e., underwater photography)."
Interestingly, "The datasets also recorded different species composition with iNaturalist recording many rare, less abundant, or cryptic species while the structured surveys captured many common and abundant species."
The authors end the abstract by saying, "These results suggest that integrating data from both opportunistic and structured data sources is likely to have the best outcome for future biodiversity monitoring and conservation activities."
So what's the take-home-message? For me, it's that iNaturalist is an incredibly powerful citizen science platform and the efforts of Australasian Fishes Project users are contributing to a better understanding of the natural world. Pat yourselves on the back and please continuing to upload your observations - not just those of strange or rare fishes, but also of common species.
Publicado el mayo 8, 2022 10:47 MAÑANA por markmcg markmcg | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario

12 de mayo de 2022

World Ocean Day iNaturalists wanted to share knowledge

This journal post was written by Australasian Fishes project member Dr Adam Smith, (@adam_smith3) who is an Adjunct Associate Professor at James Cook University and founder of Reef Ecologic.
To celebrate World Oceans Day 2022 we are asking the iNaturalist community to connect with the ocean and people between 1 and 8 June, 2022 and share photographs of marine life.
If you are an existing member of iNaturalist please introduce a new person such as a beach walker, citizen scientist, snorkelers, SCUBA diver, fisher, tourist, Master Reef Guide, reef ranger, students or photographer to the iNaturalist community. Scanning the QR code, above, will direct you to the iNaturalist sign-up page.
We would love to see your photographs of marine life and we are particularly interested in observations of fish, sharks, corals, shells, turtles and threatened species. Please also let us know if there are any reefs, islands or areas or species you think we should focus on for this event.
We will provide a pre-event online briefing and training for people interested in joining iNaturalist and this World Ocean Day ReefBlitz and FishBlitz on the 31 May. Join here.
We will provide daily updates through social media.
Learn more here, or contact Dr Adam Smith on Adam.smith@reefecologic.org or call 0418726584.
Below are three relevant links.
2. World Ocean Day ReefBlitz information and training event
https://www.facebook.com/events/490688616140592
3. World Ocean Day Marine Life Surveys
https://www.facebook.com/events/1143305346244649
Publicado el mayo 12, 2022 03:12 MAÑANA por markmcg markmcg | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario

24 de mayo de 2022

Another one!

In March we posted a journal entry (view it) about observations of the rarely encountered Benham's Streamerfish, Agrostichthys parkeri. Since uploading that story another specimen has been observed.
The observation was uploaded by Jaco Grundling (@jacog) who stated, "One of the locals (Samantha Bell) at Mākara Beach spotted the fish when out walking with her dog at Fisherman's Bay. She posted in our local community Facebook page looking for an ID. I thought our best bet finding out what she found was adding it to iNaturalist and linking it to the Australasian Fishes Project. From what she said the fish was about 2m long and still alive when she observed it. It went on land by itself where she observed its tail detach which suggested that it might have been attacked. It eventually writhed back towards the water and entered the shallows."
If this was a contest, New Zealand would be leading 2 to 1. Benham's Streamerfish is a cool water species that is found right around the New Zealand coastline, but in Australian waters is only known from Tasmania and southern Victoria. It would be interesting to see more observations of Benham's Streamerfish. Come on you Cabbage Patchers and Taswegians, you can't let the kiwis outdo you. :)
Publicado el mayo 24, 2022 05:19 MAÑANA por markmcg markmcg | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario