Publication details

The Role of Citizen Science and Deep Learning in Camera Trapping

Authors

ADAM Matyáš TOMÁŠEK Pavel LEHEJČEK Jiří TROJAN Jakub JŮNEK Tomáš

Year of publication 2021
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Sustainability
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web Web
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su131810287
Keywords artificial intelligence; crowdsourcing; environmental monitoring; conceptual frame-work; wildlife
Attached files
Description Camera traps are increasingly one of the fundamental pillars of environmental monitoring and management. Even outside the scientific community, thousands of camera traps in the hands of citizens may offer valuable data on terrestrial vertebrate fauna, bycatch data in particular, when guided according to already employed standards. This provides a promising setting for Citizen Science initiatives. Here, we suggest a possible pathway for isolated observations to be aggregated into a single database that respects the existing standards (with a proposed extension). Our approach aims to show a new perspective and to update the recent progress in engaging the enthusiasm of citizen scientists and in including machine learning processes into image classification in camera trap research. This approach (combining machine learning and the input from citizen scientists) may significantly assist in streamlining the processing of camera trap data while simultaneously raising public environmental awareness. We have thus developed a conceptual framework and analytical concept for a web-based camera trap database, incorporating the above-mentioned aspects that respect a combination of the roles of experts’ and citizens’ evaluations, the way of training a neural network and adding a taxon complexity index. This initiative could well serve scientists and the general public, as well as assisting public authorities to efficiently set spatially and temporarily well-targeted conservation policies.

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