[nysbirds-l] Linnaean Society Presentations, Tuesday April 10.
Mark your calendars! This coming Tuesday, April 10 the monthly meeting of the Linnaean Society of New York offers two interesting and exciting presentations: 6:00 pm – Citizen Science in the Information Age: Improving the Quality and Usefulness of Crowd-sourced Datasets – Shaibal Mitra Digital technology has revolutionized the ways in which natural history observations are collected and shared. Public participation has been vastly expanded, and remarkable advances have been achieved for historically difficult questions regarding the distribution and abundance of wild organisms. At the same time, observers' practices have been changing rapidly, for many reasons, both intended and unintended, with a wide range of consequences for data quality and usefulness. Shai Mitra, an evolutionary biologist, will critique several areas in which the relationships between methods and results have become confused, such as the selection of sampling sites, distance and duration of effort, completeness of samples, independence of samples, and treatment of taxa above and below the species level. Mitra will show that current practices—including some that have been strongly advocated—are yielding negative consequences for data quality and overall usefulness, and will propose several simple improvements. 7:30 pm – Birding for Conservation in Colombia – Alvaro Jaramillo Many birders have heard that Colombia is the most bird-rich nation on Earth! So why is it not full of birders? It’s on an incredible upswing, coming out of a decades-long conflict, political as well as the illegal drug trade. Those days are becoming history. The country has gone through a sharp turnaround turnaround in regards to travelers’ safety. The birding is astounding, and there are some wonderfully unique spots to visit. Among these is the Santa Marta mountain range, separate from the Andes, that has an incredible level of endemism—species that cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. Santa Marta, the nearby dry forests, the coastal desert, and the Perijá Mountains to the east make northern Colombia an amazing way to begin to dip your toes in the unbelievable birdlife of this country. Then there are the three different ranges of the Andes, and valleys rich with endemics. Alvaro Jaramillo has been involved in a large project with National Audubon over the last couple of years that aims to promote conservation through economic development. How? Well, by creating the infrastructure and guide training to increase birding tourism in the area. When people earn a living from birding, they will preserve the birds and habitat. Come learn about this innovative program, and discover the richness of birds and birding in Colombia. Where: The Linnaean Society of New York meets on the second Tuesday of each month from September through May, except March, in the Linder Theater on the first floor of the American Museum of Natural History (enter at West 77th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue). All welcome! good birding, Anders Peltomaa Linnaean Society of New York -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
[nysbirds-l] Linnaean Society Presentations, Tuesday April 10.
Mark your calendars! This coming Tuesday, April 10 the monthly meeting of the Linnaean Society of New York offers two interesting and exciting presentations: 6:00 pm – Citizen Science in the Information Age: Improving the Quality and Usefulness of Crowd-sourced Datasets – Shaibal Mitra Digital technology has revolutionized the ways in which natural history observations are collected and shared. Public participation has been vastly expanded, and remarkable advances have been achieved for historically difficult questions regarding the distribution and abundance of wild organisms. At the same time, observers' practices have been changing rapidly, for many reasons, both intended and unintended, with a wide range of consequences for data quality and usefulness. Shai Mitra, an evolutionary biologist, will critique several areas in which the relationships between methods and results have become confused, such as the selection of sampling sites, distance and duration of effort, completeness of samples, independence of samples, and treatment of taxa above and below the species level. Mitra will show that current practices—including some that have been strongly advocated—are yielding negative consequences for data quality and overall usefulness, and will propose several simple improvements. 7:30 pm – Birding for Conservation in Colombia – Alvaro Jaramillo Many birders have heard that Colombia is the most bird-rich nation on Earth! So why is it not full of birders? It’s on an incredible upswing, coming out of a decades-long conflict, political as well as the illegal drug trade. Those days are becoming history. The country has gone through a sharp turnaround turnaround in regards to travelers’ safety. The birding is astounding, and there are some wonderfully unique spots to visit. Among these is the Santa Marta mountain range, separate from the Andes, that has an incredible level of endemism—species that cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. Santa Marta, the nearby dry forests, the coastal desert, and the Perijá Mountains to the east make northern Colombia an amazing way to begin to dip your toes in the unbelievable birdlife of this country. Then there are the three different ranges of the Andes, and valleys rich with endemics. Alvaro Jaramillo has been involved in a large project with National Audubon over the last couple of years that aims to promote conservation through economic development. How? Well, by creating the infrastructure and guide training to increase birding tourism in the area. When people earn a living from birding, they will preserve the birds and habitat. Come learn about this innovative program, and discover the richness of birds and birding in Colombia. Where: The Linnaean Society of New York meets on the second Tuesday of each month from September through May, except March, in the Linder Theater on the first floor of the American Museum of Natural History (enter at West 77th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue). All welcome! good birding, Anders Peltomaa Linnaean Society of New York -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
