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, I 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. I 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.