Category Archives: Prizes

News, Prizes, Publications

RSS Discussion paper – Analysis of citizen science data

A paper by Emily, Alex, Eleni and Byron was discussed at the 2024 RSS conference in Brighton as part of the multi-paper discussion meeting Analysis of citizen science data.

The meeting was chaired by the president of the RSS, Dr Andrew Garrett.

Alex and Eleni presented the paper, which was discussed by Dr Ben Swallow, St Andrews university, and Professor Kerrie Mengersen, University of Queensland.

Details of the paper are given below

Paper 1: ‘Efficient statistical inference methods for assessing changes in species‘
Authors: Emily B Dennis12, Alex Diana3, Eleni Matechou2, Byron J T Morgan2
(1Butterfly Conservation, 2University of Kent, 3University of Essex)

Download the preprint
Supplementary materials 

Abstract: The global decline of biodiversity, driven by habitat degradation and climate breakdown, is a significant concern. Accurate measures of change are crucial to provide reliable evidence of species’ population changes. Meanwhile citizen science data have witnessed a remarkable expansion in both quantity and sources and serve as the foundation for assessing species’ status. The growing data reservoir presents opportunities for novel and improved inference but often comes with computational costs: computational efficiency is paramount, especially as regular analysis updates are necessary. Building upon recent research, we present illustrations of computationally efficient methods for fitting new models, applied to three major citizen science data sets for butterflies. We extend a method for modelling abundance changes of seasonal organisms, firstly to accommodate multiple years of count data efficiently, and secondly for application to counts from a snapshot mass-participation survey. We also present a variational inference approach for fitting occupancy models efficiently to opportunistic citizen science data. The continuous growth of citizen science data offers unprecedented opportunities to enhance our understanding of how species respond to anthropogenic pressures. Efficient techniques in fitting new models are vital for accurately assessing species’ status, supporting policy-making, setting measurable targets, and enabling effective conservation efforts.

Speakers, organisers and discussants enjoyed dinner and interesting conversation at a nearby restaurant.

The session was recorded and is available on the RSS youtube channel (Discussion meetings)

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Prizes

Congratulation to Marina whose poster won silver at STEM for Britain.

On 13th March Marina went to Parliament to present her poster on How do bird populations vary across Britain? Spatially-explicit integrated population models, as part of STEM for Britain competition. As stated on the STEM for Britain website, “STEM for BRITAIN Awards are made on the basis of the very best research work and results by an early-stage or early-career researcher together with their ability to communicate their work to a lay audience.” Marina’s poster won silver in the Mathematics category. Well done Marina on this amazing achievement.

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grants, Prizes

SE@K project awarded Sciences Faculty Competition scholarship

The project, titled  Studying migration patterns of UK bird populations using Bayesian nonparametric models, was proposed by Dr Eleni Matechou in collaboration with Dr Alison Johnston from the British Trust for Ornithology and Professor Jim Griffin from SMSAS.

Summary of the proposal: The PhD student on this collaborative project will develop and use novel and sophisticated statistical models, namely Bayesian nonparametric models, to understand patterns of bird migration within the UK. The data to be analysed refer to bird species that breed in the UK and spend the winter in Africa. These are collected by the BTO as part of the Constant Effort Sites (CES) monitoring scheme. The analyses will describe the migration patterns, phenology, population sizes and distribution of these species. Links between these demographic parameters and environmental covariates will be explored to explain the mechanisms leading to patterns and changes (for example, climate change leading to earlier migration). The results will also be used to inform conservation management strategies. As well as a number of scientific manuscripts describing the statistical models and the ecological processes, the student will also produce freely-available software that will be used by the BTO in the future and by any interested researchers to fit the models to their own data.

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Conferences, grants, Prizes

Congratulations to Ming for her IBC bursary

SE@K student Ming Zhou was awarded £500 for attending IBC 2016 in Victoria BC, Canada.

Ming’s application was judged by the Biometric Society and the Fisher Memorial Trust.

As a recipient of a bursary Ming will provide a one page report after the conference summarising how she has benefited scientifically from attendance, to be published on the Regional website.

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