Automated monitoring shows great promise for biodiversity monitoring. In-field sensors offer non-destructive sampling in sensitive habitats, and allow insects, other animals, and plants to be observed around the clock. However, questions remain about how novel monitoring approaches compare to traditional ones: they may perform differently in specific environmental contexts, capture different activity patterns, or record organisms at different taxonomic resolutions. Automated methods also produce huge volumes of data, leading to bottlenecks in data storage and processing, while the data generated can present ethical and privacy issues. Developing workflows to make sense of automated monitoring data, and to make it interoperable with existing insect biodiversity data, is critical for being able to make use of these new technologies and interpret them in context. Finally, international protocols and data standards will be pivotal to ensure global cohesion across automated monitoring datasets.
This working group is a signpost to existing communities, resources, protocols, and data standards towards the international rollout of automated insect monitoring.
The primary aims of the Automated Monitoring working group are:
We welcome contributions to the Automated Monitoring working group. We need help to collate and promote existing communities, resources, protocols, and data standards related to use of cameras, acoustics, radar, and molecular methods in automated insect monitoring. If you would like to get involved, please contact Jamie Alison by email (jalison@ecos.au.dk).