Wildlife Australia - Spring 2017

I

predict that 10 years from now, studying

and enjoying wild plants and animals

will become much more popular thanks

to the proliferation of apps. With advances

in recognition software and filter systems,

identification will become easier and more

intuitive,’ wrote Mark Runkowksi in a

Wildlife Australia article back in December

2015 (‘Welcome to the new age of nature

apps’, Vol 42 No.3). Now, just a few

years later, it seems his prediction has

already come to pass. Many millions of

smartphones, tablets and devices are

sold annually, all connecting users to

apps at the touch of a finger. Together

with websites and image databases,

apps now constitute a huge resource for

providing information and assistance to

those who want to identify the species

they encounter. The list of users is long:

ecologists, wildlife managers, biosecurity

and quarantine officers, students, amateur

naturalists and citizen scientists at large.

Nature apps and online tools catalogue

flora and fauna from trees, herbs, and

fungi to spiders, snakes, fish and many

other organisms. Users who wish to

identify a flower, for instance, can open a

wildflower app and flip through to identify

the plant, or, if they think they already

know the common or scientific name,

can use a keyword search to bring up

the relevant fact sheet. Most have been

developed from printed field guides and

operate in a similar fashion. Where there

is a restricted number of species, such as

bird or plant species within a small, local

habitat, this works well; however, if the

plant or animal belongs to a taxonomic

group containing a multitude of species,

a systematic way of narrowing the list to

make a final identification becomes useful.

Over time, two taxonomic identification

systems have been developed for this

purpose: the dichotomous (or pathway)

key system and the matrix key system.

Follow the path or dive

into the matrix?

Since the time of Linnaeus, naturalists

and taxonomists have developed and

published dichotomous identification

keys. Based on their experience in sorting

species into taxonomic groups, experts

developed a series of linked statements

‘

Apps and online identification tools harness the power of portability, cloud computing and

GPS data to connect more people with the world around them, making the task of identifying

species and learning more about local wildlife easier than ever, as Geoff Norton, Matt Taylor

and Damian Barnier explain.

Apps that allow citizens

to add to existing

research have the power

to democratise data and

crowd-source science.

(usually a couplet) that described specific

features. Imagine you want to identify

an insect using a dichotomous key. One

simple couplet in the key might be –1(a)

‘Wings present, has four wings and wings

are broad’ and 1(b) ‘Wings present, has

four wings and wings are narrow’. After

checking the specimen, if 1(a) was correct,

you would go to couplet 2.

NATURE KIT

SWIPE

FOR

SCIENCE

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

BEHIND SPECIES

IDENTIFICATION

RIGHT

Selecting important identifying features helps

the Insect Orders of Australia app make a

determination of species using a ‘matrix’ key.

Photo: Identic

Photo: Lwp Kommunikacio [CC]

34 | Wildlife Australia | SPRING 2017