Apply for Free Access to Nature FIRST Conference (innovative solutions for biodiversity monitoring and human-wildlife coexistence)
22 May 2025 2:37pm
Agent Based Modelling Advice
5 May 2025 3:23pm
19 May 2025 5:05pm
Thanks for the reply Alan.
The research question is:
If I modify the infrastructure (roads, wildlife crossings, fences, water features etc basically any geospatial feature) in the environment can we predict where the deer/elk will move to based on those modifications?
The goal is to prototype the new layout/features of an area that contains a large road to establish the best measures (wildlife crossings, fences) and placement to prevent elks crossing the large road as much as possible. The team want to minimize vehicle collisions.
The second order effects are also interesting. If we close off an area they are used to going, does that change where they go, and if so, where?
22 May 2025 2:31pm
Hi David,
I would reiterate what Alan has said here - there is no concrete "right" or "wrong" way! It can be really helpful if you have animal movement data, particularly if it's from the area you'd like the model to emulate, but not a requirement.
Based on the question you're asking, you could analyze the deer data you have to determine how different variables influence their movement, which you could then use to set some of the rules for your model. I would note that deer and elk can move across a landscape quite differently, so if you have a species mismatch this might not be the best approach. I have taken this approach for some models, but I have also built others where the rules were entirely based on information pulled from an in-depth literature review. All of my models deal with large mammals (deer, elk, cattle, wolves, etc.).
One of the biggest things you'll have to decide is which/how many rules and parameters you want to include in the model, because you can end up with a long list rather quickly, making the model complex and heavy. How you set up your rules and parameters will also depend on the scale, of your model, of course. Behaviors and movement decisions appear differently at an hourly, daily, weekly scale across meters, kilometers, etc. so you'll want to account for that.
Good luck!
Vivian
PhD Advice
22 April 2025 1:34am
4 May 2025 4:14pm
Hi @ethanmarburger, I am probably not the best to give advice here given that it took me nearly two decades to actually finish my PhD, but I'd aim for something that you are really interested in so that you can keep up a high momentum. If you love your project you are more likely to cruise through the 'grind' periods. In terms of networking, WILDLABS is definitely a great place to start! You may well find some connections just looking across the threads here, and reaching out to people that are doing work you are interested in. More broadly, and depending on where you are in the world, you might be able to volunteer or even get some work on projects in your area, which can be a good way to get a foot in the door to larger research projects. You could possibly look at helping out on some analysis of spatial/AI datasets etc, or reach out to not-for-profits and conservation charities and see what they need/you might be able to help with - but try and be as specific as possible so they know straight away what you are after. Just a few quick ideas off the top of my head, and more than happy to discuss further. My best for your search!
Cheers,
Rob
19 May 2025 12:29am
Hi Ethan, It's indeed a competitive area. My advice for you (and anybody else seeking a PhD supervisor)...
- Do background research on each individual potential supervisor and always approach them demonstrating your alignment with their research focus.
- Show that you have read and understood one or two of their key (relevant) papers in your initial email to them.
- Have in mind something relevant to you AND to the potential supervisor, to propose as a topic in your initial email to them. But, remain open to their ideas - there's a good chance they have something that would align with your interests and that would (more) smoothly generate a successful PhD than you might have come up with ;-)
- Write clearly and succinctly.
- Demonstrate enthusiasm and highlight any relevant past experience and engagement in the relevant area (briefly).
- Attach a PDF CV.
- Apply for PhD positions in areas where you are qualified.
- Evidence that you have published a good paper, especially as first author, from your Masters thesis would be a bonus.
This is a time-consuming process. But you may end up spending 3+ years working with this supervisor, and vice versa. It's important for all concerned that you (and they) make a good, informed decision.
Good luck in your search!
Alan.
Second generation Automated moth monitoring system
22 May 2025 2:34am
Low-cost GPS tracking of giant tortoises
27 April 2025 7:35am
5 May 2025 8:47pm
Hey Lisa,
There are plenty of off-the-shelf, low-cost GPS archival tags that you could attach, but as you note, getting the data off without recovery is where you transform from low-cost to "higher" costs. Coupling a low-cost GPS archival tag with a UHF or VHF radio tag and a handheld receiver might be one of the cheapest ways to go. There are a number of radio-tag manufacturers that you can look into that have such devices (present company included).
If you want a tag to collect GPS locations and transmit that data through some means (cellular or satellite), your low-cost application quickly turns into a high-cost application. For example, on the low end our GSM-based tags around in the $1600 range and our satellite-based tags are in the $2500 range. Then you also have the data service costs to consider.
...just some initial thoughts
21 May 2025 2:55pm
Hi Craig,
Thank you very much for your input. I am currently looking into different options and also potential sources for funding. I will get back to you if more questions come up.
21 May 2025 2:58pm
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for your input. It is helpful to get that sort of info as I am not so familiar with the topic and just starting to understand the vast array of tagging options.
Advice needed for accessible acoustic monitoring
15 May 2025 10:50am
20 May 2025 11:16am
Thanks for your responses Christos and Carly
The FIA is used by forestry managers, NGOs, communities, indigenous groups and other non-experts to measure a proxy for biodiversity in the forests that they manage and provide information of management. The forest composition and structure as microhabitats in the forest are most correlated with overall biodiversity (fungi, plants, animal). Adding a measure has been used as an education component thus far, but improving on this would potentially increase users awareness of key vocal species. Anything that HCVN recommends for development must be accessible, simple to low-cost. Acoustic sensors and data processing with BirdNET or similar would potentially be inaccessible for some users communities so I was enquiring within the Wildlabs community on suitable approaches that could provide a proxy measure of biodiversity for better forest management.
Happy to jump on a call to explain further (based in UK)
Cheers
20 May 2025 6:51pm
Hi Nev, from a high level, have you considered acoustic indices and the biodiversity index?
21 May 2025 2:50pm
Hi Mona. Yes, this is what we certainly what we are considering, but how to measure these indices by the hands of non-experts in the field is the advice that I need from the WL network. Cheers
AniMove Summer School 2025
21 May 2025 1:08pm
Documentary on Conservation
5 May 2025 10:12am
5 May 2025 11:59am
Hey Nick,
Sounds like an interesting film project. A small company I always really liked is OpenForests.com
They do a great job on using remotely gathered images to monitor forest projects and their results, and a lot more I guess.
Good luck!
Sven
5 May 2025 2:37pm
Would definitely recommend reaching out to Nature Tech Collective - an industry coalition of nature tech start-ups, orgs, companies. It's an awesome community and you'll be spoiled for choice on entities to engage with!
20 May 2025 11:16pm
Hi Nick,
At Wildlife.ai, from the other side of the world, we would be happy to chat with you. PM if interested
Victor
Announcing the WILDLABS Awards 2025 Grantees
20 May 2025 2:32pm
20 May 2025 9:26pm
22 May 2025 10:00am
Welcome to WILDLABS!
29 October 2015 5:16pm
1 May 2025 10:10am
Hi, I'm a front-end developper working with
We are currently building app and tools to better visualise camera trap datasets. (more on that here)
If you have any need for user interactions an front-end work, make sure to ping me!
15 May 2025 10:18am
Hi. I am Nev Kemp working with the High Conservation Value Network. The Network is a member-based organization that promotes the High Conservation Value (HCV) Approach, a pragmatic methodology to identify and protect ecosystems, biodiversity, and the needs of indigenous peoples and local communities where development takes place. https:// HCVs are biological, ecological, social, or cultural value of outstanding significance or critical importance and include six categories 1. Species Diversity; 2. Landscape-level ecosystems, ecosystem mosaics and IFL; 3. Ecosystems and Habitats; 4. Ecosystem Services; 5. Community Needs; and 6 Cultural Values.
The HCV approach has its origins in FSC certification but is now included in 23 standards and beyond certification. Under certification schemes, land managers should identify, manage and monitor their HCVs to maintain and enhance them. One of the biggest weakness is monitoring, especially for biodiversity. HCV a I am working on updating the Forest Integrity Assessment (FIA) tool https://www.hcvnetwork.org/library/hcv-screening-summary that helps managers (and other non-experts) monitor the state of their forests and promote action to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. FIA has been implemented in many countries, but 'old-school' - manually, paper-based, that has made its uptake and utility limited. We need to update the tool on an accessible and mobile application with integrate suitable tech for monitoring biodiversity. The potential for monitoring biodiversity on a massive scale across 6 continents where the HCV approach is applied is both exciting and challenging. While very new to the tech space, I have been working in conservation for over 30 years (SE Asia) and have practical field experience working with stakeholders on the ground. So I here to learn what is possible, and what the network members think is most appropriate for the needs of HCVN. Cheers
20 May 2025 2:22pm
Hello everyone, I am very excited to just have joined Wildlabs.net and to connect with people from all over. My name is Brigitta and I am working as a project coordinator for the Animove Summer school www.animove.org for the Max Planck Institut of Animal Behavior.
Governance in Action: How Practitioners Use ElinorData.org to Drive Conservation Results
19 May 2025 6:57pm
The Variety Hour: May 2025
19 May 2025 3:55pm
Software QA Topics
9 January 2025 12:00pm
19 May 2025 5:30am
Hi everyone,
What should we share or demo about Software Quality Assurance?
Alex Saunders and I, the two Software QA people at Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS) are going to do a community call to knowledge share on software testing and test automation in the 3rd or 4th week of January.
We've listed a few QA topics that we could talk about in this 1-2 minute poll here basketball stars and would like your feedback on topic priority.
Thanks for your feedback and we look forward to connecting! We'll also post when we have an exact date and time pinned down.
Sounds like a great initiative—looking forward to it! I’d love to hear more about your real-world test automation setup, especially any tools or frameworks you’ve found effective at WPS. It’d also be helpful to see how QA fits into your dev workflow and any challenges you’ve faced specific to conservation tech. I just filled out the poll and can’t wait to see what topics get chosen. Thanks, Alex and team, for organizing this!
What are Some Good Conservation Tech Graduate Programs/Paths?
27 March 2025 2:05am
15 May 2025 12:56am
I went to University of Michigan for undergrad. I admired this graduate program in engineering sustainable systems. It's a dual degree through the school of nature resources and the college of engineering (for example, mechanical engineering department). You apply to both schools and if you get into both, you can get into this program.
Good luck!
16 May 2025 8:03am
I work on shark research using photo ID techniques, and the mother company running all the software is based in the US (called Conservation X). They are doing really exciting stuff to combine technology with conservation efforts. Perhaps its a company you could contact to see if there are internships or anything?
19 May 2025 3:19am
Hi Frida!
As a recent graduate gearing up for grad school applications, I've also been looking into conservation tech programs. As @carlybatist already mentioned, there's an Ecology and Data Science MSc from UCL, and @Frank_van_der_Most mentioned the upcoming program from the University of South Wales. I also want to add the MS in Conservation Technology from Florida Tech.
I'll let you know if I find more.
Need advice for running BirdNET on big data
11 May 2025 12:14pm
17 May 2025 10:44am
I haven't tried BirdNET analyzer, but with regards to running any bigdata/ML processing, my advice would be to look at something like Google Colab instead of your own laptop.
Hope this helps.
19 May 2025 12:22am
Would that be able to process locally stored acoustic data?
One of the great things about birdnet analyzer is that it is local - it doesn't require uploading terabytes of data into the cloud, which would be expensive, take forever, and likely have some transfer errors in areas with poor internet connection (like the tropics where I do my research).
Planet Imagery is no longer available on GFW
15 May 2025 2:15pm
18 May 2025 8:37pm
The loss of the free NICFI tropics data has been a huge loss for us at CI. We have many teams that were using it for lots of different use cases. If anyone has alternatives, we would love to hear about them! Just looking at what we can get from Sentinel/Landsat now.
Automated Image analysis
18 May 2025 5:10pm
Prototype for exploring camera trap data
20 January 2025 10:23pm
6 May 2025 4:53pm
- Regarding species richness, isn't it covered by the activity tab where we can see the entire list of detected species? What else do you think would be helpful? I can imagine a better UI focusing on species with more information for each species and easier search but the raw info would be roughly the same.
I think the app sort of covers this, using the pie chart layover on leaflet in the activity tab. However, it would be nice to have a more direct way of visualizing the species richness (i.e. scale the radii of the circle markers with the number of species detected). In addition to this you may want to think about visualizing simple diversity indices (there's alpha diversity which captures the species richness at each trap, gamma diversity to summarize the total richness in the area and beta diversity to assess how different species compositions are between traps). Note: I do not use diversity indices often enough to provide more specific guidance. @ollie_wearn is this what you were referring to?
- Regarding occupancy, that makes sense to me. Only challenge is I'm not using python or R at the moment because and we use javascript for easier user interfaces with web technologies. It's still possible to add python support but I'd delay as much as possible to keep things simple. Anyway, it's a technical challenge that I'm pretty sure I can solve.
I can help you with setting up the models in R, Python or Stan/ C++. But I have no idea on how to overcome the technical challenge that you are referring to. I agree with @ollie_wearn that allowing variable selection and model building would take this to far. One thing I would suggest is to allow users to fit a spatially-explicit version of the basic occupancy model (mind that these can be slow). This type of model leverages the correlations in species detections between trap locations to estimate differences in occupancy across the study area rather than just estimating a single occupancy for the entire area.
- What about relative abundance? My readings always mention occupancy, species richness, abundance and density. I've read and ask enough about density to know that it's hard for unmarked animals and might not be necessary. If I understood correctly, relative abundance can give similar insights and as a conservationist, you probably want to know the trend of relative abundance over time.
Yes, I would leave users with the following options: a UI-switch that let's them pick either:
- the number of observations
- the number of individuals detected
- the relative abundance index or RAI (based on 1.)
- the RAI (based on 2.)
to visualize on the leaflet map - and barchart on the side in the activity tab.
Regarding density: you could add a tab that calculates density using the Random Encounter Model (REM), which is often used when estimating density of unmarked animals without info on recaptures.
Regarding activity patterns: I would also add a tab were users can visualize either diel or annual activity cycles (often called activity patterns) computed through the activity R-package (or integrate this in an existing tab). And maybe even allow computing overlap in daily activity cycles among selected species.
If you manage to include all of these, then I think your app covers the 90% of use cases.
Some other features worth discussing:
- merging/ comparing multiple projects
- in line with calculating overlap between activity cycles, allow computing a spatial overlap between two species or even a spatio-temporal overlap
7 May 2025 10:49am
@Jeremy_ For the Python implementation of basic occupancy models (as suggested by @ollie_wearn ), please refer to these two projects:
I second @martijnB suggestion to use spatially explicit occupancy models (as implemented in R, e.g., https://doserlab.com/files/spoccupancy-web/). However, this would need to be added to both of the aforementioned Python projects.
17 May 2025 10:53am
Lively and informative discussion, I would very much like to contribute if there is some active development work with regards to this.
I have recent experience with using Model Context Protocol (MCP) to integrate various tools & data repositories with LLMs like Claude. I believe this could be a good idea/path whereby we can do the following:
1. use the images & labels along with any meta-data, chunk/index/store it in vector db
2. integrate with existing data sources available by exposing the data through MCP server
3. Use MCP friendly LLM clients (like Claude) to query, visualize and do other open-ended things leveraging the power of LLM and camera trap data from various sources.
Regards,
Ajay
NASA webinar on animal tracking + remote sensing
16 May 2025 6:06pm
Applied Bioacoustics in Conservation and Practice
16 May 2025 4:21pm
The Boring Fund 2024 - MoveApps
17 January 2025 12:54pm
2 April 2025 12:15pm
We are pleased to inform you that we have now finalized point 2 and 3. Here some details of the update:
- App browser improvements:
- Improved overview and search: we have added a description of each category and
the search and filtering options are improved. Searching for Apps within a Workflow: we have added the option to include Apps
that are not compatible with the IO type, making it easier to decide if a translator
App is needed to include one of the incompatible Apps.
- Improved overview and search: we have added a description of each category and
- Public Workflows improvements:
- Improved overview: the public Workflows are now organized by categories which
can be also used for filtering. - More information: the details overview contains now the list of Apps included in
each Workflow. - Sharing Workflows: when creating a public Workflow you will have to select one
or more existing categories, but you can also always request a new category.
- Improved overview: the public Workflows are now organized by categories which
Go and check it out in MoveApps!
4 April 2025 2:53pm
That's so great, thanks for the update!
16 May 2025 12:20pm
We are please to inform that we have implemented the point 1 and 4 and with this have finalized the project. The latest improvements:
- Improvement in findability of help documentation: we have started to populate the platform with links (question mark icon) to the relevant
sections of the user manual. - The log files of each App can now be downloaded and when an error occurs directly be sent to MoveApps support. Find more details here.
Again a great thank you for giving us the opportunity to implement these changes. We think they have greatly improved the user friendliness of MoveApps
Brokering finance deals to fund nature restoration with Rob Gardner
16 May 2025 9:30am
Boombox Workshop at ICCB 2025
16 May 2025 8:18am
Must profit be part of the environmental solution?
12 February 2025 10:24pm
7 May 2025 8:37am
7 May 2025 9:00am
I think you answered your own question Frank. If grants are out of the question and you actually want results at scale, profit is your only option. For the people/companies with something to offer and no funds in any case.
In my opinion, wildlife initiatives as a commercial target alone I would say is even harder than the more general IT market as the wildlife market is much smaller market with limited funding, especially this year. So that means that the company is likely going to have to target normal markets to be viable, with wildlife as a side project for them in principle in the most cases. And there's a limited commercial market for wildlife initiatives, so philantrophy would likely also have to be part of the equation.
In today's world with a lot of horrific people with a lot of power, we need to encourage people to realise that success is not just about making money, but also about being a good person and contributing to the planet. Unfortunately, a lot of people with enormous amounts of money and enormous egos seem to equate success only with money and greed. With a few exceptions. We need more exceptions.
16 May 2025 8:14am
I very much agree. It is a shame that companies/organisations are willing to spend so much to take from the earth and so little to give back. In the example I come from, we are a team of pure citizen scientists that give all our time for free to perform shark research. In my case, those same volunteers often use money from their own back pocket to keep the project going. We also rely heavily on the generosity of Conservation X to keep our software running and the servers alive.
Technology is not cheap to run. Every server uses electricity and as we all know its going up in price.
It is a very scary situation when I know that all shark research that we are performing with Spot a Shark (and is being relied on by scientists to publish studies) is funded by nothing more than favours and donations. If that all ended tomorrow, do we just stop all research, awareness, campaigning etc and hope for the best?
My view is that it ultimately comes down to the government to ensure that conservation is valued. Take extra taxes from the wealthy organisations / banks etc and fund this stuff. I am sure if people like Mark Zuckerberg etc can afford a $900k watch to wear on their wrist, they could afford to support conservation.
A Conservation Technology Meetup in Botswana!
15 May 2025 11:52am
16 May 2025 9:58am
16 May 2025 10:26am
16 May 2025 12:03pm
Can RGB drone data & Machine Learning be of value in Conservation?
14 May 2025 12:52pm
Poaching data request
23 January 2025 2:27pm
25 March 2025 8:33am
Hello Martina, I just messaged you! Hope to speak soon! :)
29 March 2025 5:18pm
Late, but better than not at all - they unfortunately don't have exact geolocations available. Just general hotspots without related numbers.
Sorry I could not help further!
13 May 2025 3:49pm
Hi Georg,
Oh, that's a pity. But thanks anyway for checking!
Really appreciate it!
Cheers
Martina
19 May 2025 12:18am
Hi David,
In short, there is no "right" answer. That's why you have heard different ideas from different people. Basically, you need to start with the research question, and then figure out how best to answer it using a model calibrated and validated with your data. If you have high-level movement data for the deer, you may not need to understand the driving forces and decision making methods the deer used in order for you to build a useful model. But whether or not this is the case can only be determined by reference to the question(s) you wish to use your simulation to answer!
Kinds regards, Alan