Developing a citizen science application for monitoring biodiversity

The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) monitors biodiversity across Alberta. ABMI has developed an application called NatureLynx to facilitate the collection of natural history observations by broad stakeholders, including the public. This application will enable people who are not professional scientists to participate in the process of collecting data; this is called citizen science. Initially, NatureLynx will be released to a few groups of citizen scientists (e.g. naturalist organizations) who will provide feedback to improve its design in preparation for wider distribution. Following testing, the application will be released to the public and will be freely available. After its public release, the quality of the data collected by the application will be tested by comparing it with data collected systematically through ABMI’s monitoring activities. Once the NatureLynx data collected by this application has been assessed, it will benefit the organization by increasing the range of biodiversity monitored (via citizen scientists) and facilitating more effective public outreach and engagement.

Faculty Supervisor:

Andrew Derocher;Stan Boutin

Student:

Partner:

Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Alberta

Program: