BirdFlow Science is a joint project between UMass and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to model bird movement from eBird Status and Trends weekly bird distribution data, allowing scientists to predict changes in bird distributions and simulate routes.
Data Core is supporting the project by building and maintaining the BirdFlowR package that predicts movement, visualized movement, and generates synthetic routes from the BirdFlow model. BirdFlowR also handles preprocessing the eBird data before fitting the models and distributing the fitted models. By visualizing migration patterns and creating predictive models, Data Core’s work on BirdFlowR contributes to data-driven conservation strategies and ecological research.
These models offer valuable insights into how bird populations may shift over time and space, bridging the gap between complex modeling and practical applications, and empowering the scientific community and public to raise awareness about biodiversity and ecosystem health.