Aside: Until now, we’ve provided all of the materials, supplies, and training you’ve needed to collect the genetic data. Defining your urbanization metric is the aspect of the experiment is where you’ll become truly independent researchers. As scientists, you’ll often want to answer a question they you only have half of the skills to answer. The solution is to gain the skills you need and/or find a collaborator. Usually it’s a little bit of both.
Second Aside: All of the links below were found by googling keywords. There may be many, better links to resources that you’ll find with different keywords and persistence. KEEP A LOG OF THE SITES YOU VISIT! Nothing is more frustrating than finding the BEST SITE EVER only to never find it again.
Goal: To define and characterize every colony site with a urbanization metric, such as percent impervious surface, temperature (eg, average/max summer degrees C), etc.
- Identify a data source for your metric. Does it have a metric or urban/rural for every colony site in our study?
- Some data sources: https://gisgeography.com/best-free-gis-data-sources-raster-vector/
- Find others on your own.
- Learn how to overlay it onto Google Maps or Google Earth.
- Import/Export GIS data from Google Earth/Maps: https://github.com/CenterForSpatialResearch/gis_tutorials/blob/master/19_Importing_and_Exporting_GIS_Data_from_Google_Earth_and_Google_Maps.md
- Filetypes explained: https://blog.batchgeo.com/google-maps-and-gis-data-demystified/
- Or upload colony coordinates into another GIS visualizer, like qGIS (open source), ArcGIS (proprietary), or R (open source but code-based).
- ArcGIS Map Server: https://www.mrlc.gov/arcgis/rest/services/LandCover/USGS_EROS_LandCover_NLCD/MapServer
- ArcGIS Map: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mrlc.gov%2Farcgis%2Frest%2Fservices%2FLandCover%2FUSGS_EROS_LandCover_NLCD%2FMapServer&source=sd
Decision Time: In the next two weeks you’ll finalize your metric of urbanization and classify every colony by your metric. Plan out how much time you can afford to spend exploring how to do this, and create a plan B if your work to the time limit does not get you results. If you gain know-how, be willing to teach your classmates so they also have some new resources for this project and future ones. If you get stuck and need to discuss a plan B with us, we’ll be available in office hours next week.