About the Series
Introducing the second season of WILDLABS Tech Tutors, our series that focuses on answering the "how do I do that?" questions of conservation tech. Launched with the support of Microsoft AI for Earth, this series will give you the bite-sized, easy-to-understand building blocks you'll need to broaden your conservation technology horizons, enhance your research, or launch a new collaborative project.
Taking place every Thursday, each Tech Tutor will present a 30 minute tutorial guiding you through an aspect of conservation tech, followed by a 30 minute live Q&A session with the audience.
Tech Tutors is made for conservation tech beginners of all knowledge levels (and yes, even experts can still be beginners when it comes to tackling a new aspect of conservation tech or starting a new project!), and because we know that there's always more to learn in the #tech4wildlife world, that's why we're so excited to bring you a brand-new season of WILDLABS Tech Tutors! With presentations that will take you even deeper into those tricky "how do I do that?" questions of conservation tech, we hope you'll discover new perspectives and ideas to bring to your own #tech4wildlife work.
For participants, the outcome will be an increased sense of confidence in their technological skills, the ability to actively build off of the skills discussed in these tutorials, and an opportunity to learn and collaborate with other members of the WILDLABS community. Read about the first season's community highlights here.
Our goal is to customize these tutorials to fit the needs of the community and address your needs, so let us know what you want to see in this season and beyond.
Can't make it? You can find every tutorial after it airs on our Youtube channel.
Meet your Tutors: Zephyr Gold & Marconi Campos Cerqueira, Rainforest Connection
Zephyr Gold
Zephyr is leading a new department at Rainforest Connection that was formed to ensure their technology provides maximum value to users. This includes ensuring their Guardian hardware is delivering on target impact metrics, thus empowering their partners on the ground to successfully stop illegal activity in rainforests around the world. This also includes accelerating the ability of the scientific community to make conservation gains by providing high-value software tools for eco-acoustic research and analysis.
Marconi Campos Cerqueria
As Biodiversity Scientist at Rainforest Connection, Marconi is in charge of translating the vast audio dataset of RFCx into meaningful biological and ecological information that can be used to aid conservation. Marconi has been working in the tropics for more than twelve years, and his primary interest is developing a global acoustic monitoring network to enhance biodiversity monitoring across the globe. Marconi has used passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) to study the impacts of natural gas exploration, mining, and forest certification on Amazonian avifauna and to study climate change effects on species distributions in Puerto Rico.
We asked Zephyr and Marconi...
What will I learn in this episode?
- What is the RFCx Arbimon platform, and how can it help us improve biodiversity monitoring?
- How is RFCx Arbimon used to monitor fauna?
- How is RFCx Arbimon used to automatically identify species in audio recordings using the pattern matching tool?
- How can I use the pattern matching tool in RFCx Arbimon?
How can I learn more about this subject?
To see how RFCx Arbimon has been used to monitor biodiversity check out our publications here.
To learn how to create a pattern matching model in RFCx Arbimon, follow the instructions here.
If I want to take the next step using this technology, where should I start?
- Try out the new RFCx Arbimon by creating an account through the link
- Visit our support site with useful articles on how to get started.
- To get a solid background on bioacoustic analysis check out Marcelo Araya's tutorials and workshops (also available in Spanish).
What advice do you have for a complete beginner in this subject?
Always consider what your main ecological questions are first. Are you interested in understanding patterns of vocal behavior, or species spatial distribution patterns? A clear understanding of your main ecological questions will help you choose the best settings for your pattern matching analyses.
The RFCx Arbimon platform was designed to make species-specific automated identification analyses accessible to everyone. To get the most benefit from this tool check out our support documentation. The best way to learn is to jump in and get started by creating an account in RFCx Arbimon and reach out to us via chat from within Arbimon, or by emailing us at [email protected] with any questions or concerns. We look forward to supporting you!
Learn more about our upcoming Tech Tutorials
Visit the series page on WILDLABS to find the full list of WILDLABS Tech Tutors.
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