The Great VI Frog Count is a Citizen Science project to map the distribution of frogs across the Virgin Islands. Anyone who is in the Virgin Islands during the survey can submit recordings from anywhere on any island, it doesn't matter if frogs are calling or not. No knowledge of frogs required, either-- all you need is a smart phone with a voice memo app and google maps. This project is part of a long term study on VI frog activity patterns and distribution. In the past we have been limited to information that could be collected from people trained to recognize frog calls, and to areas where those people were able to access. Using a citizen science approach coupled with sound analysis software, we can increase the areas surveyed and decrease the human error. Long term, these data will provide valuable information on the status of our frogs, the health of their ecosystems, and their response to climate change.
Participants go outside in the evening (between 7 and 9pm) during the first two weeks of October and take recordings on cell phones or tablet. The short time window for the project minimizes variation in frog activity due to weather and day length. Participants submit the recording and location information, collected using a dropped pin in Google Maps, to a dedicated email address. We use the submitted information to map the distribution of frogs across the Virgin Islands. The more people that participate, the better survey coverage we have!
All submitted recordings are converted to a standard audio file format and uploaded into a bioacoustics analysis program to identify the calling frog species captured in the recordings. The location information for each recording is mapped together with the species found at those locations. Once all the locations are mapped, we will go out and survey areas where we didn’t get recordings. The final product will give us a distribution map of all the surveyed locations and their associated frogs. We can use these maps to look for patterns related to habitat, urbanization, and other species. Over time with repeated surveys, we can start to track influences in species distributions from climate change.
All personal information provided by participants is kept confidential and deleted when the recordings and location information are processed (we may need to contact you if we have a question about your submission).
Frogs are declining globally, and our frogs are also under threat due to habitat loss, competition & predation from non-native species, and climate change. The more we know about them and where they are, the better able we are to implement informed conservation actions. Frogs are also important indicators of environmental health and using long-term monitoring data on frog distributions we can identify and fix environmental problems.
Participation in citizen science programs is fun! People can learn about the science and play an active role in data collection. And when people have a better understanding of the world around them, they are better stewards of the environment!
It's simple! just go outside during the first two weeks of October between 7 - 9pm and take a recording on your phone. Drop a pin for your location. Send both recording and pinned location to vi.frogcount@gmail.com. Technical guidance on how to do this can be found here.
The Great VI Frog Count is managed by VI Wildlife Research Inc. , a local non-profit that aims to support wildlife conservation in the Virgin Islands through research, restoration, community outreach, and citizen science. The project's principle investigator is Dr. Renata Platenberg from the University of the Virgin Islands.
VI Wild Board Officers: