‘Workin on (May 13, 2019…)
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iNaturalist keeping an eye on Nova Scotia’s forests 21May2019
Post, May 21, 2019.
PROJECTS:
Healthy Hemlock Forests of the Maritimes
Admin: flyersmith (Matthew Smith) Created February 03, 2018. “About
This project will track the location of hemlock stands throughout the Maritimes. Eastern Hemlock forests are endangered due to the presence of a sucking insect Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA). In July 2017, HWA was observed in 5 counties (Yarmouth, Digby, Shelburne, Queens and Annapolis) in Southern Nova Scotia. This site will allow observers to submit reports of HWA and infestation level.’
Healthy Ash of the Maritimes
Admin: flyersmith (Matthew Smith) Created February 26, 2019. “All species of ash trees are in trouble due to the threat of the invasive species Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). EAB was first discovered in Atlantic Canada in 2018 in two locations; Edmunston, NB and Bedford, NS. This project tracks observations of healthy ash trees (White, Green and Black) for the Maritimes and those trees infested by Emerald Ash Borer. Any new observations of EAB in the Maritimes should be reported immediately to CFIA”
Beech bark disease resistance
Admin: ancientforest (Michael Henry) Created March 19, 2017 “Disease-free beech trees have been observed in infested stands throughout the range of beech bark disease (BBD). If you see a beech tree at least 20-30 cm (8-12 inches) in diameter that appears healthy and free of beech scale, while trees around are dead and dying of the disease, it may be a resistant tree. Locating these trees will be important for American beech breeding programs…”
Rare Species of Nova Scotia
Admin: Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre Created October 26, 2017. “The Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre (AC CDC) gathers, manages, and distributes information about biological diversity in Atlantic Canada. …Observations of rare species in this project will help us fill in the gaps for species distributions and contribute to the conservation and protection our natural resources.”
Corbett-Dalhousie Lake Forest
admin: bevwigney . Created May 5, 2019 “A project to collect observations from the area known as Corbett-Dalhousie Lake Forest in Annapolis County, Nova Scotia”
Bend In The Brook
admin: bevwigney . Created May 4, 2019 “Observations from a slice of riparian woods and meadow above Round Hill River.’
Annapolis Royal and Area Environment, Ecology and Nature
admin: bevwigney . Created Nov 10, 2018 “This is a project for a community of Annapolis Royal and area naturalists who wish to create a collective database of our observations.”
WHAT IS iNaturalist?
The feature that makes iNaturalist especially user friendly and that really opens up nature observations to everyone, regardless of natural history skills, and is fun at the same time, is the “automated species identification computer vision tool”. Take a pic – with your smart phone or regular camera – upload it to iNaturalist (you have to register first), and it will make a guess at the name or identification of the species by comparing that image to all images in its database for which IDs (identification) are known. It offers several guesses, you pick the one that ‘looks best’ and enter it or leave it unidentified. Then members of the iNaturalist community will look at the image and eventually it (iNaturalist) will confirm a correct name – or not, e.g., because the image is poor or doesn’t show enough detail to distinguish it from another species. View Video Observe Nature with iNaturalist
There’s more to it, but ‘best just to try it out.
Be careful, you might get hooked.
From iNaturalist:
iNaturalist is a lot of different things, but at its core,
iNaturalist is an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature
It’s also a crowdsourced species identification system and an organism occurrence recording tool. You can use it to record your own observations, get help with identifications, collaborate with others to collect this kind of information for a common purpose, or access the observational data collected by iNaturalist users.However, despite the fact that iNat can be a bit technical and seems scientific, our primary goal in operating iNaturalist is to connect people to nature, and by that we mean getting people to feel that the non-human world has personal significance, and is worth protecting. We have a pretty nerdy way of doing that, of course, but we really believe that recording information about nature in a social context is a tremendous way to understand the awesome depth and breadth of life on Earth. Read More
Also view iNaturalist on Wikipedia
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