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Data rescue intern:
Emma Menchions Background The field notes of early botanists are an undervalued source of biodiversity data. They can provide us with high quality baseline data that spans back to the time before we had heaps of species observations from community science portals like iNaturalist. The main challenge is translating this data from scribbled (and sometimes waterlogged) notes on paper to useable, clean data! Data rescue intern:
Olivia Rahn The Living Planet Index tracks long term population trends in vertebrate populations across the globe- these population trends are published as part of the WWF’s Living Planet Report. The database is curated and managed by multiple organizations, including the London Zoological Society. While the database is extensive and has been used for many different analyses of vertebrate populations, many records in the dataset are either not georeferenced or are not georeferenced using a standardized protocol. This limits the scope of analyses that can be done using the dataset- for example, analyses that integrate local climate data or land-use change data with population trends require accurate georeferencing.  Data Rescue Intern:
Jory Griffith The Trail Valley Creek Research Station is located 50km north of Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. Trail Valley Creek is an incredibly important area, as it drains 58km2 of tundra and is underlain by continuous permafrost. It is also warming at a quicker rate than most of the globe, and this warming is causing increased permafrost thaw, arctic greening, decreased snowfall, and changes in runoff. These changes have large impacts on Canada’s water resources. The Trail Valley Creek Research Station has been collecting hydrological data in this area for over 30 years.  The data rescue intern:
Siobhan Schenk The Long-term Rocky Tidal Community Data collected in Discovery Bay, Jamaica by McMaster University Professor Jurek Kolasa, and his many students every year from 1989 to 2006, is unique not only in the length of study and the richness of the microinvertebrates sampled, but also by the cultural enrichment opportunities provided to students that participated in the project.  The data rescue intern:
Charlotte Hagelstam-Renshaw The Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park is located in southern Ontario, Canada where visitors enjoy many outdoor activities, such as camping and canoeing. The Kawartha Highlands includes many small lakes and wetlands and is a short distance from major population centres such as Toronto Ontario and as a result is a popular destination in the summer. As such, it is important and useful to monitor both the health of its water bodies and understand potential effects of human activity.  The data rescue intern:
Fiel Dimayacyac My data rescue internship was centered on climate data from Parks Canada from Nunavut national parks under the guidance of researcher Florence Lapierre Poulin. The data were collected from four different weather stations: Tanquary Fjord, Lake Hazen, Ward Hunt, and Conger Island from 1989 until 2019. Data were downloaded annually from the weather station sensors at each location and were recently amalgamated into a single database by Florence. Many researchers wish to use the data, but the state of the database was problematic at the time for multiple reasons. The data collection methods were inconsistent between years as sensors where replaced or upgraded over the years and as a result different headers for the same variable existed, or certain time spans were missing headers, or there were inconsistencies with units of measurement as well as of time. In some cases values were in error or unrealistic for various reasons (sensor error).  Fig. 1: Map of the sites that are in the database for the Alberta NOS. The NOS specifies locations (transect) in which, almost every year, volunteers go and record if they have heard or seen owls on a transect. Each point on the map is a “stop” on a route (transect). The data rescue intern:
Marc Olivier Beausoleil The Canadian Nocturnal Owl Survey (NOS) aims to better understand the population trends of nocturnal owls, but also provide insights in owls’ habitat use and how this information can improve land management and conservation practices. The NOS has produced an incredible amount of data from volunteers across Canada for over 20 years. The goal of this internship was to finalize the data entry from two locations: Alberta and Nova Scotia (more specifically, Cape Breton). A previous LDP intern (Jacob Hubner) started the process of data entry, especially for Alberta. I build upon Jacob’s work by entering the data from Cape Breton and finalizing the data entry for Alberta. |
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