[ExI] confused trees and bees, FW: Season's Greetings from the Federation

Alex Blainey ablainey at aol.com
Mon Dec 23 04:31:48 UTC 2013


 -----Original Message-----
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
>>OK then, all this makes my point exactly.  We have a million pairs of eyes and no good way to integrate observations.  We have people everywhere who casually observe wildlife and may see something important, but we are left with no unified means to collect these kinds of observations.  This has always been the case, but now we have the theoretical ability to make sense of those collective observations.  I don’t know how to do it, but there should be some means of reducing bug counts to locations and hard data by some means.  Over time, important patterns should emerge.
 
Global warming is a topic of great interest in the past decade.  How about some kind of citizen scientist operated home weather station that bluetooths data to your computer which then sends it to some central location?  We could rig something cheap, something Newtonmas-able gift idea, something which would collect air temperature and light-level measurements, or perhaps humidity as well.  Then we get a thousand data points for every one we get now, even if we accept that there are uncontrolled factors influencing the data.
 
It would be so cool to figure out some way to make home security cameras somehow do extra duty as a wildlife observation station.  I use mine that way: I have gotten some spectacular bird photos with it, but no perps so far.  People will buy home security cameras.  We should figure out ways to use these unblinking eyes to do more stuff.
 
But back to the original point, how can we ever notice collectively if things like millipedes, woodlice and roaches went missing?  For the bees it is easy because citrus and nut growers immediately pay a lotta money for them.  With ants we can get data from the local hardware store regarding boric acid sales.  But what if something else killed off the more obscure bugs that almost nobody likes?  Would we notice?
 
>>>spike
 
 




 Argh AOL formatting strikes again. Apologies.  

Funny you should mention affordable weather stations. Ibelieve (fingers crossed) that my good lady has procured for me just such anitem for Newtonmass. 
The idea of automatic insect monitoring is a problem. Itseems to me we are still employing 18th century naturalistmethodology for invertebrate census taking.
Throw down a square, wave a net, light up a sheet and letthe manual count commence. A pitiful state of affairs.
Where are the bloody Roboroaches with micro sized heroheadcams? Beaming back daily counts and classification of all the creepy crawlies they encounter.We are in the 21st century right? Come on entomologists, its already the future. get with it.

CCTV or webcams may be a valid idea. A half decent lens and good resolution covering the standard 1 metre/yard square patch of ground. Plug in some movement tracking software and an algorithm to distinguish between a fluttering leaf and a bug making a track. Shame the little critter tend to make a point of being hidden.

A
 



 
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