Modeling the unseen - studying birds occupancy and abundance using citizen science

Tackling the biodiversity crisis requires efficient biodiversity monitoring projects to inform conservation actions. Citizen science has become a tool for gathering the amount of data needed to accomplish this goal.

In this project, we aim to to evaluate the use of eBird, a citizen science project, for monitoring bird populations across Ireland.

I am also collaborating with Bird Watch Ireland to generate workflows that can enhance the usability of some of the datasets they collect, such as the Country Bird Data. We aim to implement hierarchical models than can account for detection probability issues and obtain unbiased estimates of species abundance.

Finally, I aim to use these data to generate tools that can aid with ecological restoration programs across Ireland.

We have now published one paper and an undergraduate student will be leading some analysis using the CBD.