Thanks to data collected by citizen scientists and the U.S. weather surveillance radar network, we’ve been able to gain amazing insight into the lives of birds. We can forecast where, when, and how many birds will migrate, then observe these movements in near real time on a continental scale.
BirdCast is a collaborative project that leverages the expertise of computer scientists and ornithologists to harness the power of big data to study movements of birds. Birds truly represent dynamic and global communities, and recent trends in methods and analyses showcase what may be the future of bird migration research and conservation to study birds' complex roles in terrestrial, aerial, and aquatic systems.
In the age of big data and observation, the potential of what remains for us to learn is inspiring. In this session, we will highlight how big data has allowed experts to develop models to forecast bird migration, predict bird-aircraft collisions, study impacts of light pollution on nocturnally migrating birds, and investigate long-term changes in migration systems. This knowledge also allows us to estimate bird mortality and recruitment, and to even study the movements of other animal species.
The series “Reimagining Citizenship” features scholars, writers, and artists whose work interrogates the limits and possibilities of legal, social, and cultural belonging. Through book talks, roundtables, and presentations, we consider how multidisciplinary, multispecies approaches to the study of migration open up new understandings of citizenship, borders, and social transformation. Organized through Cornell University’s Migrations Global Grand Challenge.
Image credit: August Davidson-Onsgard / Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (ML155039781)
