Does anybody know if a software exists that supports the recording of multiple wildlife species in a relatively small area (about 200m by 400m) over a certain period of time. I would be very thankful for suggestions.
iSpot Projecting is perfect and WE get to share! https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/769578/ preview removed by me
I think the GBIF website can do that:
Also depends what you mean by mapping.
Do you want to say where each individual is to nearest cm or give general indication of what is where?
Can you create a grid to cover the area e.g. based on surrounding fence posts or similar. See my post on how to get 0.5m accuracy using a smartphone, this could define exactly where the overall area is in lat long coordinates.
If you want to overlay an actual grid e.g. 10m grid ove the google aerial photo I could perhaps do that for you if you are not very familiar with GIS software such as qgis.
I tried serching for Blackbird, not very informatve or useful
I misunderstood the question!
What I try to do is recording quite a number of organisms (algae and invertebrates mainly) in their annual appearance and disappearance on a small stretch of our beach. This means monthly observations of what shows up and when. I record the location with my camera, so I know what it is and where it is. Sadly there are no fenceposts for reference in the area, nor anything else to have the same effect. When all the observations are done, I want to create some charts to show the results. This means location data need to be shown on some kind of map. I have tried Google Earth, and it works to a certain degree, but is very cumbersome and does not have the scale I would like.
I’m not (yet) familiar with GIS software, so some help would be very much appreciated.
Probably the best (free) GIS software is qgis. It may look complicated but you can quickly and easily plot a simple .csv file over a google or more or less any other basemap.
One thing is that the download of qgis is rather large, it used to be small but they now include various things that makes it big so takes a while.
If you want to try that then I could show you how to plot the data out.
As Dejay says having the data on iSpot would also be nice and doing a project would allow everyone to see the observations.
yes (please)
The phone app by Torvus Consultants is good in open spaces (beaches)
It is rarely wrong but needs a cross check ocassionally.
Once you have a map drawn in a project (200 x 400m) you will see immediatly if there is a significant error. Lay the phone beside your subject for a photo (for which you will a cheap camera) so that you have a perfect record.
In project you make observations, You can add as much as you like to Description in each and edit it freely and with 14 different seasonal photos of the same precise location or organism,
Here’s the link to the Android version
And here is another of my current projects
https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/project/746155/
Check the project map full screen satellite view
i can help via private email if you wish
I have downloaded qgis and it will take quite a while until I will be at home with it. Thanks for the suggestion, when I have mastered the basics, it will do exactly what I want it to do.
The next question for me is, is there a basemap for coastal and marine environments that would show the depth as a colour gradient. This would make it perfect. I will look for it as well, but as you know, I’m always thankful for suggestions. The title picture will be changed soon.
By the way, some of the data is already on iSpot, on my Rustington Beach Project, at the moment it has about 50 observations.
Thanks for all your interest and the suggestions, I will definitely keep them in mind as the project develops.
There may be but I don’t know it. Actually dealing with marine is often difficult as there are plenty of polygons and base maps for land but very few for sea.
https://www.gebco.net/ might have something suitable but not sure how accurate it is on a fine scale, there are also surveys of UK from ADMIRALTY Marine Data Portal - GOV.UK, not sure if these cover the whole area though.
Thanks miked. I will have a closer look when I’m more experienced with QGIS. For the moment I have managed to use Google Earth Satellite in QGIS and I can plot separate points at the moment. Once I have got to grips with importing batches of data and can convert the long lat coordinates in bulk, I will think about the next steps. Thank you ever so much for all your help, it has sped up the progress of my project enormously.
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After about two months of working with QGIS I can say it is brilliant. Bulk import of GPS data is easy and it does almost everything I wanted to, including nice PDFs to show the results. Thank you ever so much miked for putting me on this path. I hope you will ever read this, it’s so long ago all this started. In about 5 months I hope everyone who is interested in the marine environment will be able to see the results. Thanks also to ðerek, the app really works and I was able to find the same boulder in the intertidal zone in amongst hundreds of similar ones.
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Thanks, of course I read the forum, actually all posts which does take some time!
I have been using qgis more or less since it started but generally only in simple ways which is fine but when you want to do something a bit more complex then there can be a learning curve.
Much more lately! It’d be no fun on a phone!
Most of the observations are on iSpot. If anyone is interested in the papers, the first four are published on Academia, here are the links:
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Looks like very good work. I’ll spend some time here o’er the weekend
QGIS is very powerful for mapping polygons. Less so for spot points, such as species records. iSpot could be the best FREE option. However, its reporting options need to be more tailored to individual recorders’ needs IMHO.
See my earlier comments on plotting site polygons (adding a polygon)
Agreed. The GBIF configuration is very far removed from a system a normal naturalist would use. It gives a Hymenophyllum tunbridgense record north of Brighton, yet none in Kent!