A new Data in Action story, "Citizen Science and MODIS Data Reveal Patterns of Bird Population Change," describes how researchers with Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology combined citizen science data from the eBird project with data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites to estimate population change and relative abundance for 495 North American bird species.
In conjunction with accounts of birds observed and identified at a particular time and place, the researchers used MODIS Land Cover Type data to capture interannual changes in land cover and MODIS Land Water Mask data (derived from the MODIS instruments and the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) to help delineate the interface between terrestrial, aquatic, and marine environments.
In addition to finding high and previously undetected spatial heterogeneity in bird population change and relative abundance trends across North America, the results of this study demonstrate how participatory science data combined with other broad-scale, observational datasets—such as those from Earth-observing satellites—can be leveraged with promising analytical tools to detect, diagnose, and respond to population changes at ecologically relevant scales.