Project update: positive stories and publications

Greetings everyone,

Well, we are most certainly overdue for a journal post! First of all, we'd like to extend a big thank you to everybody who has been adding to the project, from long-time members with hundreds or even thousands of observations (you people are citizen/community science powerhouses!) to brand new members.

Here's a few things that have been going on with the project:

This week, we published a short piece in The Conversation detailing 5 remarkable stories of flora and fauna in the aftermath of Australia’s horror bushfire season using observations submitted to the project. Some of your photographs are even showcased in the article!

You can read it here: https://theconversation.com/5-remarkable-stories-of-flora-and-fauna-in-the-aftermath-of-australias-horror-bushfire-season-155749?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton


Something that came out last year that I didn't end up posting about (I was rather pregnant!) is the first peer reviewed paper from the project - Rapidly mapping fire effects on biodiversity at a large-scale using citizen science. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720358770?dgcid=author

Here's a quick summary:

•Citizen scientists were able to rapidly collect data on biodiversity following bushfires (within days), moving much faster than conventional timeframes.
•Data that citizen scientists provided on fire severity (burn height and canopy scorch) nicely matched 'hotspots' satellite data. What this means is in areas where satellites recorded very hot burn areas, your data reflected this by showing high values for tree scorch height (burnt right to the top) and either complete canopy scorch or canopy completely consumed.
•Data was collected at a scale that matched the extent of the firegrounds, and on a wide range of biodiversity - fungi, animals, plants, lichen

For a PDF of the paper, just message me with your email address.

We'll be more active on the journal posts from here on in!

Happy nature-observing everyone

Casey

Posted on March 17, 2021 09:54 PM by alpine_flora_of_australia alpine_flora_of_australia

Comments

Glad to know our efforts are useful to you. I have learnt so much, and enjoyed exploring for flora and fauna. I know my property so much better now. I even ended up studying entomology with the University of Alberta via a MOOC. Also, thanks to Prof David Emery, my cicada samples ended up in the Australian Museum. A win all round.

Posted by paulaboer about 3 years ago

@paulaboer no thank you, your contribution to the project has been monumental! It's definitely a special property you have down there. So cool that you've done an ento MOOC and have your collections in the Aus Museum too!

Posted by alpine_flora_of_a... about 3 years ago

@hupnupnee Thanks Tim, I'll send you a message :-)

Posted by alpine_flora_of_a... about 3 years ago

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