Frog Discovery Tool: A monitoring tool to detect frog occurrences based on identified sample frog species

The Katak Detector

Nurhanie Syakirah (S2132021), Yu Yuen Hern (S2121801), Nor Shaffilza (S2156225), Aina Shamsuddin (S2138897), Dong Xiaoran (S2131591)

Background of the Project

Amphibians such as frogs and toads are strong indicator species for pollution. They have permeable skin through which they absorb oxygen and toxins. As a result, they’re extremely sensitive to changes in the quality of air and water. They’re often the first animals, for example, to be affected by pesticide use in or near their ecosystems. Scientists look to them to get a sense of the overall health of old-growth forest ecosystems and to monitor the effects of human-caused habitat changes.

Dataset: Frog occurrence dataset

https://challenge.ey.com/challenges/level-2-global-frog-discovery-tool-EEmnW-5fR/data-description

Introduction of Project

The declination of frogs may be a warning to us that our planet is becoming unliveable. The disappearance of frogs is causing concerns such as increase of greenhouse effect, climate change & balance of ecosystem.

  1.  What are the frog trends that we can see from the dataset?
  2. When the frog’s population at its highest?
  3. When and where the frog’s population at its concerned rates?
  4. Which species is considered dominant population in Australia?
  1. By studying indicator species, scientists can keep a finger on the pulse of an entire ecosystem’s health without having to spread monitoring resources across multiple species and locations. Monitoring is key to prioritizing actions intended to protect and restore biodiversity.
  2. This allows scientists not only to learn which populations of frog species are most at risk, but it also helps them protect frog populations and, crucially, their entire ecosystems.
  1. Researchers & scientist
  2. Governmental or non-profit organization
  3. Law makers

Data Science Methodology

Result:

To be able to develop a monitoring tool of frog occurrence for 9 frog species across Australia and extract useful insight from it.

Shinyapps link

Conclusions

  1. Ultimately, frogs are important to the world because they are essentially our “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to the environment. They are considered natural bioindicators, which is something that measures the health of the environment. Where frogs occur, we see healthy, thriving, resilient ecosystems.
  2. Monitoring indicator species can also better help scientists their research on ecology and biodiversity. For example, while a wetland ecosystem may show general signs that something is amiss, if scientists see that frog populations are plummeting, they’ll know the problem may be pesticides.
  3. Scientists, lawmakers, and public officials can also use the data collected from indicator species to implement conservation policies. For examples, protecting land and habitats, regulating development or chemical use, or passing laws to reverse or prevent damage before it becomes too late.

Build a computational model that can predict the count of frogs for a specific location using multiple datasets, and to validate model on other locations other countries.