Name
Utilizing Community Science Data to Map Box Turtle Habitat and Road Crossing Risk
Date & Time
Wednesday, May 15, 2024, 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Location Name
Salon A
Description

Community science, also known as citizen or crowd-sourced science, invites members of the public to help scientists conduct research projects. In 2020–2021, the WV Division of Natural Resources administered a community science project using ArcGIS Survey123 focused on collecting locational data for Eastern Box Turtles with an emphasis on understanding habitat distribution and road interactions. The mobile application was a successful approach to encouraging public participation while maintaining structured data entry and storage design and allowing for real time data access, geospatial storage of data, and photo submission. Over 8,000 observations reported across the state inform a bias-corrected random forest model that predicts habitat suitability based on the observed relationship with environmental characteristics, and a road crossing risk analysis that identifies areas where wildlife-crossing structures may most benefit turtles at risk of vehicle collisions.