Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Garden. 1pm-2pm, 22 June 2024
Hosted by Friends of the Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Garden
Citizen Science – More Useful Than Ever Before
Annie Lane will outline the latest trends in citizen science, including the importance of enabling large scale data collection particularly for studying environmental change, its value for community engagement and education in biodiversity conservation, and how data quality issues are being tackled. Some interesting recent examples include the use of citizen science data to determine food preferences and nesting site of endangered birds, identify a new species of frogs through recordings of calls, help track the path of invasive species, and documentation of our changing coastline.
Annie Lane is Chair of the Australian Citizen Science Association and the Budawang Coast Atlas of Life, and was previously the Flora and Fauna Conservator of the ACT.
Citizen Science at the ERBG – an iNaturalist Project
Bruce will outline Life in the ERBG, an iNaturalist project at the Botanic Garden. Established in 2021 the project now has over 3,500 observations mostly plants and insects, but also birds and fungi. The data are providing new insights – what plants are growing in the garden and the natural areas, when do they flower and what insects are pollinating them. The project has engaged a community of observers at the Garden, and some novel findings have eemerged, particularly wit insects. At the higher level, the NSW Herbarium is encouraging us to make observations especially of invasive species which are under-recorded. And many botanists now supplement their plant collections with iNaturalist.
Bruce Wilson is a Wallace Herbarium volunteer and consulting plant ecologist, formerly at the Queensland Herbarium and in the Northern Territory.