This devastating trend was the impetus for Audubon to partner with ten organisations to provide bird enthusiasts, scientists, and policy-makers with a glimpse into the movements of migratory birds and what is needed to protect them. Since 1970, North America has lost more than 2.5 billion migratory birds.
The Bird Migration Explorer is a first-of-its-kind digital platform that reveals migration data for birds across the western hemisphere. "It's important to credit this work and to help people understand how these data were collected and used to support scientific research and conservation." "These tracking data represent a massive effort by hundreds of people, developing cutting-edge technology and getting out in the field to safely attach tags to wild birds," Davidson says. Users can locate the original study on Movebank along with additional information on how, when, and why the data were collected, and contact the data owners with questions. “Our role was to help researchers put their data on Movebank so they could participate in the initiative and to help the mapping team use Movebank's API to automate data access,” says Davidson.Īll maps produced for the Bird Migration Explorer include a citation to the original data providers. In total, Audubon accessed tracking data for more than 100 species through Movebank.Ī goal of Movebank is to help scientists and groups like Audubon to connect with each other and initiate new projects.
Researchers wishing to share tracking data with the initiative could do so through Movebank, thus making it accessible to the Audubon mapping team.
As a global database for animal movement data, Movebank provided a central place to discover, store, and access bird migration data for use in the Bird Migration Explorer.
“We have been thrilled to help the Bird Migration Explorer bring these movements together with other data and see what they can tell us.” Harnessing tracking dataįor the first time, the Bird Migration Explorer draws together a range of data types-abundance data, connectivity data, tracking data, and environmental and infrastructure data-and visualises them on maps to create a complete picture of migration for bird species in the Americas.įor the tracking data, the National Audubon Society's Migratory Bird Initiative partnered with Movebank to help harness the vast amounts of bird movement data recorded by animal-borne sensors. "Scientists have discovered so much about bird migration through animal tracking, but the results are scattered across hundreds of projects and research papers,” says Sarah Davidson, Movebank’s data curator and principal investigator.
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