RESUMEN
Understanding and managing dynamic coastal landscapes for beach-dependent species requires biological and geological data across the range of relevant environments and habitats. It is difficult to acquire such information; data often have limited focus due to resource constraints, are collected by non-specialists, or lack observational uniformity. We developed an open-source smartphone application called iPlover that addresses these difficulties in collecting biogeomorphic information at piping plover (Charadrius melodus) nest sites on coastal beaches. This paper describes iPlover development and evaluates data quality and utility following two years of collection (n = 1799 data points over 1500 km of coast between Maine and North Carolina, USA). We found strong agreement between field user and expert assessments and high model skill when data were used for habitat suitability prediction. Methods used here to develop and deploy a distributed data collection system have broad applicability to interdisciplinary environmental monitoring and modeling.
Asunto(s)
Charadriiformes/fisiología , Recolección de Datos/métodos , Ecosistema , Teléfono Inteligente , Programas Informáticos , Migración Animal/fisiología , Animales , Océano Atlántico , Playas , Conservación de los Recursos Naturales/métodos , Recolección de Datos/instrumentación , Monitoreo del Ambiente/instrumentación , Monitoreo del Ambiente/métodos , Geografía , Islas , Comportamiento de Nidificación/fisiología , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Estados UnidosRESUMEN
The West Nile virus outbreak of 1999 revealed many weaknesses in this country's ability to respond to disease threats that cross species lines. There were issues of poor communication among human, domestic animal, and wildlife health agencies that delayed diagnosis; a lack of diagnostic capacity of wildlife agencies at the state level; the exclusion of captive wildlife from any surveillance efforts; an inability to visualize the geospatial relationship between the human and avian outbreaks in a timely manner; and marked disparities of funding levels across agencies. Wildlife has played an important role in recent emerging infectious diseases, and it is clear that a One Health approach will be necessary to respond to future threats. The question is, are we any better prepared to recognize and respond to a wildlife-related emerging infectious disease than we were 14 years ago? Have the lessons of WNV been learned?