What is the aim of the project?
Alpine Bug Shot is a research project studying how climate change is affecting alpine plant-pollinator interactions in the Swiss Alps. The team is testing new automated camera traps to monitor pollinators and examining whether the surrounding floral environment influences visitation rates to generalist versus specialist flowers.
In this project, Zooniverse volunteers are helping by identifying insects in field images, which will train AI models to analyze millions of additional frames. This work enables scientists to track ecological changes more efficiently and at a much larger scale.
Who can participate and how?
To participate in the project, all you need is internet access and a device (laptop, tablet, smart phone, etc.). Go to the project website and click on ‘Get Started’. There will be a short tutorial providing instructions on how to classify on the project. Take advantage of the ‘Talk’ discussion forum, if you have any questions and/or see something of interest that you want to spark a discussion with the research team around.
You can participate for as long as or as short as you’d like; i.e., 1 minute and 1 classification or a lifetime of participation. We welcome and appreciate any and all input!
What happens with the results?
All classifications are incorporated into the research team’s efforts to label the uploaded datasets. Each image is classified by many people and the results are aggregated to create a consensus result.
The research results are posted here and shared with participants through newsletters and blog posts.
Participants can provide feedback through this link.
