CBC: Research, photos of Manitoba tundra open to public. “An archive of photos and research of plants and animals in Manitoba’s tundra are now available online, providing public access to decades of Churchill, Man., history. Professors from York University in Toronto are in the town 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg this week to share the Churchill Community of Knowledge — a digital archive that more than 50 York University students have been putting together since 2011.”
fauna
Newswise: Museums Put Ancient DNA to Work for Wildlife
Newswise: Museums Put Ancient DNA to Work for Wildlife. “Scientists who are trying to save species at the brink of extinction are finding help in an unexpected place. Heather Farrington, curator of zoology for the Cincinnati Museum Center, is using DNA from specimens collected more than 100 years ago to help understand the evolution and stresses faced by today’s animals.”
Cornell: CVM scientists develop online tool to guide wildlife repopulation efforts
Cornell: CVM scientists develop online tool to guide wildlife repopulation efforts. “Wildlife ecologists often turn to reintroduction programs to help sustain key species in certain habitats. While the wild turkey effort was a success, other long-term reintroduction programs struggle to see their species thrive. To help address this problem, a multidisciplinary team with the Cornell Wildlife Health Lab has created StaPOPd, an interactive online tool that tells users exactly how many plants or animals they need to introduce into a habitat in order to establish a stable population.”
The World Outdoors: Online eBird platform continues to evolve (London Free Press)
London Free Press: The World Outdoors: Online eBird platform continues to evolve. “It’s interesting to reflect on the evolution of the online eBird platform that supports citizen science. Launched in the U.S. in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society, its reach now spans the globe and in nature communities it represents a gold standard.”
Carnegie Mellon University: Online Atlas of Aquatic Insects Aids Water-Quality Monitoring
Carnegie Mellon University: Online Atlas of Aquatic Insects Aids Water-Quality Monitoring. “Carnegie Mellon University, working with Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH), the Stroud Water Research Center, the University of Pittsburgh, Clemson University and a set of volunteer biomonitoring organizations, led development of the new visual atlas and digital field guide. It features highly detailed images of 150 common aquatic bugs, such as mayflies, dragonflies and beetles, along with a few mussels, clams and snails of interest.”
Florida Museum: New Data Platform Illuminates History Of Humans’ Environmental Impact
Florida Museum: New Data Platform Illuminates History Of Humans’ Environmental Impact. “The human environmental footprint is not only deep, but old. Ancient traces of this footprint can be found in animal bones, shells, scales and antlers at archaeological sites. Together, these specimens tell the millennia-long story of how humans have hunted, domesticated and transported animals, altered landscapes and responded to environmental changes such as shifting temperatures and sea levels. Now, that story is available digitally through a new open-access data platform known as ZooArchNet, which links records of animals across biological and archaeological databases.”
Cornell University: Scientists propose bird conservation plan based on eBird data
Cornell University: Scientists propose bird conservation plan based on eBird data. “An international team of scientists used eBird, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s global citizen science database, to calculate how to sufficiently conserve habitat across the Western Hemisphere for all the habitats these birds use throughout their annual cycle of breeding, migration and overwintering. The study provides planners with guidance on the locations and amounts of land that must be conserved for 30% of the global populations for each of 117 bird species that migrate to the Neotropics (Central and South America, the Caribbean and southern North America).”
