The data rescue intern: Jessica Kennedy
The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) is Canada’s leading non-for-profit land conservation organization. NCC Ontario staff regularly surveys and inventories species across its properties, many of which are species at risk and invasive species. Over the past decade, NCC Ontario has amassed a very large database of species sightings (including key details such as behavior, abundance, habitat, observer, date and location). To make this data widely accessible, species at risk data will be submitted to Ontario's Natural Heritage Information Centre, and the invasive species data can be submitted to a repository such as EDDMaps/iNaturalist. However, many aspects of this dataset needed to be “cleaned up” and validated before submission to these repositories. This is what I worked on with Claire and Gracielle to accomplish throughout the course of this internship. This dataset would be very useful for other researchers and conservation organizations interested in Ontario’s many ecologically significant species at risk and invasive species. Survey of Stream Benthic Invertebrate Response to Tree Harvest: Turkey Lakes Watershed Study4/12/2023
The data rescue intern: Nicole Lerminiau The Turkey Lakes Watershed (TLW) Study was established in 1979 by several federal government departments (Natural Resources Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada) to study the impacts of acid rain on aquatic and forest ecosystems but has since expanded to include research on toxic contaminants, forest harvesting, habitat modification, and climate change. The Turkey Lakes Watershed is a mixed hardwood forest on the Canadian Shield, that covers an area of 10.5 km squared and drains into Lake Superior. It has been the focus of many interdisciplinary, whole-ecosystem studies on environmental issues. The data rescue intern: Jacob Hubner Background Community science has been slowly gaining traction as a method for conducting studies across massive scales. Large community sources of data such as eBird are being used in studies to analyze metrics such as species trends and community compositions. The lack of oversight in community science and the possible sources of error that stems from less-than-rigorous data collection is argued to be offset by the massive sample sizes. Owl surveys have been run by volunteers across the country over the last few decades. Bird studies Canada has worked with biologists who have held on to over 1500 surveys of nocturnal owl data from 1998 to 2020 and are in the process of collecting and digitizing them for analysis. These surveys have been kept by biologist Lisa Takats Priestley and now require digitization and cleaning in order to join the larger national dataset. This is what I set to assist with for my Living Data Internship. The data rescue intern: Jayme Menard
The water chemistry can identify suitable habitats for fish and the aptitude for spawning and egg survival, which aids in identifying suitability of habitats for fish survival and reproduction. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment fisheries branch collected water chemistry data in lakes around Saskatchewan between 1920 and 1990, originally to assess the lakes for fisheries opportunities. The data rescue intern: Andrea Brown The world is becoming more urban. Like many population centres, Vancouver has increased in urban density and area over the last century. Urbanization decreases the availability of natural, forested areas and increases fragmentation between smaller habitats, and has been associated with reductions in the species richness of birds.The effect of urban development on Vancouver’s birds is unknown, but could be determined by comparing current and historical bird surveys. Studies by Weber 1967, Lancaster 1974 and Melles 1994 provide a baseline for bird species diversity, density, and distribution in urban areas in Vancouver between 1960 and 1995. The Data Rescue Interns:
The researcher Dr. George H. La Roi (1936–2018) committed his working life to demystifying the ecological workings of Canada’s boreal forests. He completed his undergraduate degree at Lake Forest College in Illinois, where he also met his wife, Nanci. His subsequent graduate work at Duke University under Dr. Henry J. Oosting took him on a wild adventure from Alaska to Newfoundland to examine biological trends in white spruce and black spruce forests along this broad geographic gradient. The data rescue intern: Jonathon Diamond The project: The Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) is one of the most familiar and most common birds in eastern North America. While it normally nests in tree cavities excavated by other species like woodpeckers, it also readily accepts nest boxes. Birds Canada has monitored roughly 300 nest boxes of tree swallows from 4 sites around the Long Point Biosphere Reserve, Ontario, from 1974 onwards. Each year, May through June, volunteer research assistants check nest box contents daily, and band the adults and their young. The study was run by David Hussell of OMNR/Bird Studies Canada for many years, until the 2000s, when it was passed to Birds Canada. |
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