Wading through the data: understanding EDDMapS, a leader in invasive species mapping with Rebekah Wallace

Abigail Garofalo: 00:07

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast where we explore the environment we see every day. I'm your host, Abigail Garofalo.

Erin Garrett: 00:15

And I'm your cohost, Erin Garrett.

Abigail Garofalo: 00:17

And today we are here with Rebekah Wallace from University of Georgia here to chat with us all about EDDMapS. Welcome, Rebekah.

Rebekah Wallace: 00:25

Thank you for having me.

Abigail Garofalo: 00:26

Of course. We're excited to kinda get to know this tool in this season of talking about invasive species. This is really, we're gonna learn a lot more about it, but just such a great way to get everyone involved in in the efforts that is addressing invasive species challenges in our, natural areas. So you're from University of Georgia. This is an Illinois based podcast.

Abigail Garofalo: 00:46

Right? So it's like, what are we doing talking to somebody from Georgia? We were just joking before the recording about our differences in weathers. But, you know, tell us what you do at University of Georgia.

Rebekah Wallace: 00:58

I am the EDDMapS coordinator and the BugWood Images coordinator at the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. So it's a fairly long title both in terms of my job title and in terms of where I work.

Abigail Garofalo: 01:10

They really were like, we're not giving you any ambiguity with what you do, Rebekah. We're making this.

Rebekah Wallace: 01:17

I've I've been here for a long time, so they just like, oh, you can you can do this now, and you can do that now. So I've, my job has changed a little bit since I've gotten here adding more more responsibilities.

Abigail Garofalo: 01:29

Very nice. I love Bugwood. If y'all aren't familiar with that resource, it's really really great for just like like open source essentially images, or like attributing them, but like using them for educational purposes.

Erin Garrett: 01:43

So for someone who's never heard of EDDMapS before, how would you describe what it is and what it helps people do?

Rebekah Wallace: 01:49

So EDDMapS is a platform for information images and distribution data on invasive pest and biocontrol species. So the first step in invasive species and pest management programs is to know what to look for. EDDMaps helps people in the US and Canada to know where these species have been reported. We also have species info, so section on text info, images, maps, taxonomy, other resources. We have distribution maps, so maps of where these species have been found, and some maps we've worked with groups to promote and make available their model data for where these species might be found into the future.

Rebekah Wallace: 02:28

And then we also have tools for additional maps and querying existing data and so forth.

Erin Garrett: 02:33

I didn't know that you had models, like, forward looking, kind of predict spread. That's really cool. Because I've used EDDMapS a ton and I didn't know that that was part of it. So that's really cool for me to learn.

Rebekah Wallace: 02:45

It's it's certain species, certain locations. All these researchers are out there making all these these models, these predictions on where these species are supposed to be located in certain time frames, and they wanna make sure that data does exist beyond the paper they wrote. So we've worked with a few a couple of different researchers on making those models available.

Abigail Garofalo: 03:09

So what does EDDMapS stand for? So it's e d d map and then a capital s. Like what is behind the name? Just to help us out a little bit.

Rebekah Wallace: 03:19

So to to make this even longer of a title, if you wanted to make my title even longer, early detection and distribution mapping system. So we do get people saying EDDs maps. We get people saying EDD maps. It's EDDMapS , and we just refer to it as EDDMapS now, like you would say FFA instead of Future Farmers of America.

Abigail Garofalo: 03:42

Yes. A reference I know well, so that connects. Well, when it comes to reporting, so, like, anybody can kinda report. This is kinda like a community science effort kind of platform. Is it everyday people reporting? Is it, like, stewards in natural areas? What are we seeing as far as who's doing the reporting?

Rebekah Wallace: 04:00

It's anybody and everybody. So, yeah, the person taking a walk in their neighborhood and seeing a patch of kudzu can report it. It's people we work with that we have long term partnerships with. So it's professionals, it's individuals, it's volunteers, people who work for state and federal agencies, people who work for nonprofits, all different kinds of groups. We get data and we make sure that it's all entered into the database from a variety of different ways.

Abigail Garofalo: 04:32

Okay. So the reports are coming in from everyday people. Now who's actually using that data on the back end? You know, what kinds of scientists, land managers, agencies are relying on this kind of data?

Rebekah Wallace: 04:44

It's actually again, answer is everybody. So the average person can go and view the distribution maps. I wanna know where pythons are being reported. And then they get scared because pythons are much further north than they expect. They think they're just down, you know, in the Everglades, but they've actually been found further up into central and even some reports up in northern Florida.

Rebekah Wallace: 05:05

So might change your vacation plans.

Abigail Garofalo: 05:07

It changes mine. I'm just gonna say it. Yeah.

Rebekah Wallace: 05:12

They're they're definitely established and reproducing in in south Florida. So that's the everyday person, and then we have anybody and everybody that can request data in advance to download it. So we have students downloading data to work on projects that everything from high schoolers to PhD students for various reports, thesis, dissertation papers, all kinds of things. Land managers, they wanna know what's on their property, track management because they can do that, track populations over time. We also have agencies, so they wanna know what's on neighboring properties.

Rebekah Wallace: 05:51

So sometimes it's hard to have a regular relationship with your neighbor and know what's being reported on the the forest next door, the park next door. Across agency boundaries, it can be difficult to have that conversation. So it's a singular location for databasing some of these data. And then also list makers, policy makers, they wanna know for large scale recommendations and decision making, should Callery Pear be, you know, banned from sale in certain states because it's so so invasive and spreading so widely. So some of these different groups of people are using data in different ways.

Erin Garrett: 06:32

Yeah. It has a lot of different applications which is really cool to see. As someone who did a lot of uploads when I did my master's research on sericea lespedeza and I had so many data points of where we found it across southern Illinois and, like, sharing all of that information. I think it's funny now when I log in to EDDMapS and it's got, like, thousands of reports from certain counties. I'm like, oh, that was me putting all that data in.

Erin Garrett: 06:58

But, yeah, seeing it from that perspective, right, of, like, how it's used in research, but then what you mentioned too is, like, how can we use influence policy and all these other different ways that we might not have thought of at first glance. So it is a really powerful tool, and especially for something that goes across, you know, the country and Canada. Right? It's like a really good centralized singular location for all of that data to be pulled in together.

Abigail Garofalo: 07:22

A lot of the time, these kinds of things when you're talking about policy are anecdotal, like, oh, the stewards out there are seeing a lot of this species. So to have a platform that, like, is scientific to be like, this is how many sightings of this particular species we're seeing, We really don't think that it should be the standard parkway tree anymore, for example, or, you know, this planted in a new development. That's a really great tool for a lot of communities to have this conversation that's not just like, well, you know, I own this adjacent land, and it's got a lot of burning bush on it or whatever. It's like, no. Burning bush is popping up in, you know, these different sightings across the community. So, yeah, really, really cool, powerful platform.

Erin Garrett: 08:03

Can you talk a little bit, Rebekah, about the data that it asks for when you make an entry? Because I know we we've chatted on the podcast before about other data reporting platforms like iNaturalist, for example, but a lot of that is just, like, reporting a single occurrence. And I know at EDDMapS, it asks for, like, more data about, like, size of, like, area covered, like, number of plants you're seeing, if it's plants or things like that. Can you talk a little bit about the data on how maybe this is a little bit more nuanced than things like iNaturalist can capture a better picture of of an invasive?

Rebekah Wallace: 08:39

The data in EDDMapS comes from a variety of different places. We actually do make available to our verifiers to incorporate iNaturalist data into EDDMapS. Okay. So we do get data from large databases like iNaturalist, like the US Forest Service dataset, national parks, things like that. If you are reporting through an EDDMapS form either on the website or on an app, you can include additional data that might be more difficult to include in something like an iNaturalist report because it's standardized on our form.

Rebekah Wallace: 09:18

So with EDDMapS, we're asking for the the same basic type information. Who saw it? Where did they see it? When did they see it? And what did they see? Mhmm. We also have some additional fields, and it's very oftentimes based on the type of species you're reporting, what we're asking for those additional fields. And those additional fields are often highly prized by land managers, by researchers because it gives them that extra bit of information that might not be included in essentially presence reports only. So we do make certain fields available, like infested area, number observed, things like that which can be extremely useful for research and management. It's the ability for the person to be able to say, not just I saw it, but I saw 10 acres of it, or I saw 20 of them.

Rebekah Wallace: 10:20

To give that additional information for research and management is very important. For instance, if you have someone reporting a federal noxious weed, then the person getting that data to verify it is often also the person who's going to be going out to manage it. So they can be prepared when they go out to that site. Do I need to bring a certain amount of herbicide? Do I need to bring a certain amount of crew out to that location?

Rebekah Wallace: 10:54

So those additional fields, they are optional, but they're incredibly useful for the people using that data after you report it.

Abigail Garofalo: 11:04

Yeah. Some of that data is the difference between emerging, very new invasive challenge versus like a, oh, this is established challenge, right, which is just different kind of management when you're looking at a site in particular. Interesting.

Erin Garrett: 11:22

Yeah. And I can see it too. Like, we talk a lot in the plant realm because that's just what we're most familiar with. But, you know, I could see it as if you're looking at spreading or emerging invasives, like say chaff flower that's one that we are watching like in more southern Illinois as it's moving up north and like looking at the EDDMapS reports to and if you're in a neighboring county where it hasn't been found, right, are they finding a few in the neighboring counties? Or is it like huge amounts of it?

Erin Garrett: 11:50

If it is, then it's likely it's already there, and it's a good thing to scout for bigger infestations that might be there versus just like one or two individuals. Like, there's a lot of nuance to it and a lot of different ways that it can be used, which I think is great. And like, when you really start to get in it, already in this conversation, I'm just thinking of, like, all these different ways that this data could be applied, and it's just really a really, really great tool out there for anyone to be able to use.

Abigail Garofalo: 12:16

You've mentioned verifiers a few times. Tell me more about like the verification of these reports and sightings, and a little bit more about like who are the verifiers and and what they do and things like that.

Rebekah Wallace: 12:29

Yeah. We get data from a variety of sources, and it comes in in a few different ways. So we do have the EDDMapS app. We have the EDDMapS pro app, which pro doesn't mean profit. It just means professional.

Rebekah Wallace: 12:40

You can use either for free. So the pro app has additional features that people who are doing invasive species management as a job have found extremely useful. The average person probably doesn't need them. We also have where you can report individual observations through our website as well if you don't wanna download an app. And then we have data coming in through like I said, we're we're pulling data regularly from places like iNaturalist, and that's a different way data is coming through.

Rebekah Wallace: 13:14

And then we also have what's called bulk uploads. So programs that are collecting data on other types of technology or have their own database, they can contribute and submit shape files, geodatabases, spreadsheets through an online file uploader. And that is one of the things I do. I go through and format this data, ask questions about it, and then integrate it into the database. So we get a lot of data coming in from our state partners through this this bulk upload feature.

Rebekah Wallace: 13:52

Any which way that the data comes in, most of the time, and and the I say most because we do get data from, like, herbaria, museums, those tend to bypass the verification process because they're coming from a source where it's been verified already. But data coming from our partners, data coming from people submitting data through the website, through the app, and data coming from iNaturalist as well goes through a verification process. Now our verifiers are oftentimes the very people who will be using this data in the end. So local experts who often are part of state and federal agencies, academia, nonprofits, things like that. These are people who are very invested in this data being accurate.

Rebekah Wallace: 14:39

So the data comes in. We have a verification page where they can review the records. And then once they make a decision on this data being accurate, then it shows up on our website in the maps, in data downloads, and it's available to anybody for for viewing and use.

Erin Garrett: 14:58

That's really interesting. As you've been chatting, I've been looking up spotted lanternfly as an example that showed up in Cook County, right, in Illinois more recently. And just looking, and you can see the verific reviewer, right, that's listed on the website. And I'm looking, I'm like, oh, Tricia Bethke is reviewing spotted lanternfly, and she's on the podcast this season to talk about spotted lanternfly because she's been involved, right, and very interested in that. So that's just one example. Like, oh, look. I know who that is, and I I can see that in action as you're talking about it. So and you have all that data available too so people can see, right, like, who's verifying and all of that, and so it's very, like, transparent, that process, which is which is great.

Rebekah Wallace: 15:41

A lot of the data, like spotted lanternfly, laurel wilt, Asian longhorned beetles, some of some of these data where there was already a program that was heavily invested in making sure that there is a map, we go to those maps and we cite that they're the source, of course. So we have a lot of data that came from the Cornell map for spotted lanternfly, and then I believe someone at Georgia Forestry Commission is is kind of responsible for the laurel wilt map. And then with certain smaller reports, like, you get the occasional report now for Asian longhorned beetle. We're getting those from things like press releases. Mhmm.

Rebekah Wallace: 16:22

So we're we're going back to a source, and we're deliberately seeking out in a lot of cases, especially for highly high priority and highly damaging species. We're trying to make sure that we're kinda keeping up with things as they come out. So like I said, press releases and other maps that exist. So that we can make sure that not only does a map exist somewhere, but that data is also in a downloadable form.

Abigail Garofalo: 16:47

That's really cool because one of the challenges that comes up a lot with community science projects is the data that's given is where, like, in these, like, open source ones like iNaturalist or, you know, like, where we're just relying on on people to report is it's where people are. So a common example we see is, like, coyote reporting. People will be like, oh, yeah. There's always coyotes around people, but there's none in this natural area. And I'm like, well, no one's reporting the coyote in the natural area because the coyote isn't seeing people.

Abigail Garofalo: 17:20

Right? By pulling all from all these different data sources, one, you're getting like a really comprehensive data, and also you're avoiding those challenges that come with community science, which is just, oh, yeah. It's only where there's work in this particular natural area site versus this one doesn't get a lot of work or a lot of attention. When in reality, that's probably where there's a lot more invasive species is the one that's being neglected a little bit. So really interesting.

Rebekah Wallace: 17:46

Yeah. What it's you're never gonna avoid that bias entirely just of, you know, be things being reported where the people are to see them, but we do try to make sure we get a diverse dataset integrated into the EDDMapS database so that we are having those less populated areas represented. But that's where you might have the US Forest Service having their surveys being done or National Park Service National Park Service surveys being done, things like that. And then, of course, you know, volunteers in their natural areas going out and seeing things that the average person may not be going to that particular trail or park or, you know, whatever.

Abigail Garofalo: 18:27

Okay. And I have actually a question that's burning in my brain that maybe our audience is is listening. This is a, like, a a very involved operation. Right? Like, of, like, mapping, pulling all these datasets, verifiers, all of these things.

Abigail Garofalo: 18:41

What is the funding for this? Like, this seems like a very awesome public good. What is funding EDDMapS to provide this service for all of these, like, natural resource managers and things like that?

Rebekah Wallace: 18:53

So I will say that I when I when I talk about my position with EDDMapS, I handle everything except, like, computer programming and money. But I will say so the Bugwood Center, the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, is almost entirely grant funded, contract funded, everything we do. We do have certain people on staff that have some amount of of what is called hard funding. I am not one of them. So we have the majority of the data I'm sorry, of of the funding is done by grant and contract, subcontract funding.

Abigail Garofalo: 19:34

Yeah. I just was curious because I feel like that's the question a lot of us are asking about data and research is reliability of all these things. So it's like understanding that there are grants coming in and also supporting these kinds of projects and programs because they really are for the public good to help us manage our landscapes. Invasive species has a lot of challenges that come to people, human health, natural areas, things like that. And so to understand that it's like, this is largely soft funding that, like, relies on somebody renewing that grant and applying for it.

Abigail Garofalo: 20:05

It's really important to know because maybe it's, like, a matter of, like, well, I'm gonna use it more now because I I need to understand that they need those data inputs in order to continue on their program.

Rebekah Wallace: 20:16

EDDMapS has been around for about twenty years now. We have integrated data from other projects that have had their funding run out, or maybe it was never intended to be longer than, like, a five year grant project. So we do have data from a few different programs that I know have since either drastically reduced their scope or have, you know, the the funding entirely ran out in such a way that the the people involved with the project have moved on to other projects. So that's one of the things that we can talk about is that our program has been around for twenty twenty years now for this specific EDDMapS program.

Rebekah Wallace: 20:56

The Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health has been around for about thirty years now. And as we talked about before, it started with the image database, and EDDMapS is now a a large project within the center. And so having been around for for twenty years now, we do have some programs that have said that, you know, our database is the EDDMapS database. They don't maintain their own independent database because we've been around long enough that they're anticipating that they can rely on us to still be around. Because our funding sources we're not just relying on one grant.

Rebekah Wallace: 21:34

We're relying on grants from different places. We're relying on partnerships and contract work and all different things, which what that allows us to do is to keep expanding our offering of different features and tools. It allows us to keep updating the the apps and so forth that we have. And when we make these different tools, we're also making them available to everyone else. So when we build something for our website, when we build something into the apps, we're not just making it for that one project, we're making it available to everybody after it has been made.

Abigail Garofalo: 22:09

Because I just feel like this is like a bright spot in the world. I don't know. It just feels that way. So

Erin Garrett: 22:14

Can you share, like, a tangible example or a story of, like, an EDDMapS success that has shaped what professionals have done on the ground? We always like to share success stories or, you know, more tangible examples. Do you have one that you'd like to share?

Rebekah Wallace: 22:30

Different states have different capacities for responses to new reports of invasive species. But in Georgia, one of the species they're most concerned with and will respond very readily for our reports of cogongrass. Now the average person, it would take a minute for them to be able to identify cogongrass. It's a grass. Grasses are not easy.

Rebekah Wallace: 22:53

There are whole whole botany programs where it's like, oh, that's person. I'm not the grass person.

Erin Garrett: 22:59

That's me.

Abigail Garofalo: 23:00

It was just I was just gonna say you're talking to Erin, the grass person in Illinois Extension.

Rebekah Wallace: 23:05

So I appreciate that you do the work you do. So it so you're probably familiar with cogongrass. So cogongrass, it's been reported across a large portion of the Southeast US. It's not a good one to have.

Rebekah Wallace: 23:22

But in Georgia, we were driving to work, and it was just the right time of year. cogongrass only blooms for, like, maybe a month if that. And we were driving past this patch, and I looked looked at it and said, that's very suspicious. That looks like cogongrass. So we pulled over, and I was looking at it.

Rebekah Wallace: 23:40

I'm like, I'm not a grass expert. However, there are some some characteristics here that are very suspicious. So I reported it pretty much by the time I got to work, and I only live ten minutes away from the office. The Georgia Forestry Commission was notified that there was a report of cogongrass. And either that day or the next day, they went out and did a site visit, confirmed it was cogongrass, and had treated it.

Rebekah Wallace: 24:04

So within two days of a cogongrass report, it had been treated. Now they will monitor that spot for three years after the last sight, you know, sighting of cogongrass in that spot to make sure it's eradicated. So they'll they'll continue to treat it as long as they see it, and then for three years after not seeing it, that's when they will have ended their monitoring of it and declare that spot eradicated. Now this was a spot along the side of the road. The cogongrass is moved around pretty readily by equipment that carries plants and dirt, so mowers, excavators, earth moving equipment of earth moving equipment of all kind.

Rebekah Wallace: 24:48

There was another spot in our county where it was found and it's where logging trucks parked to go into the local barbecue place. And that spot's already eradicated as well.

Erin Garrett: 24:58

That's crazy how fast that happened. And, yeah, I that's amazing. Like, watch it for three years. That's really, like, proactive and great for that species. So that's really cool to see, like, in action how it works.

Abigail Garofalo: 25:13

What a great practice. Well, and that's, like, it's cool to see that it's like something that, you know, like it's your job as part of the program. Right? Like, that was something that happened automatically without, like, you seeing a report and then being like, here you go people, like, here's where it is. It was like all through the app, automatic, the way things worked, all worked out perfectly exactly as they're meant to. And it was just Yeah. Yeah. Just really, really neat.

Rebekah Wallace: 25:38

Yeah. When when you report, the record goes in and as a verifier, you can elect to either receive instant reports, which means you get an instant email the second that record goes in. So I don't know their their particular setup, but Georgia Forestry Commission likely has where if a cogongrass record comes in in Georgia, I want an email immediately. Otherwise, if you're a verifier, you can set up for an email every four hours of all the records that you are are allowed to verify for. That way, you can kinda look through the email and say, I need to respond to this immediately. I need to respond to that immediately, but maybe not, you know, go out and look at the kudzu patch in Georgia because there's a lot of them.

Abigail Garofalo: 26:21

You started going along, like, an iteration in which people might want a notification, and in my head, I was like, once a week I want a report. And you were like, every four hours. I was like, oh my gosh. Like

Rebekah Wallace: 26:35

Well, like I said, a lot of the people involved, especially at the early developing of EDDMapS, they're managers, especially in Florida. Florida was one of our earliest supporters and partners in the development of EDDMapS, and these are people who were highly concerned with reptiles in Florida, and reptiles move. So they need to know, oh, a python's been reported. I need to go out and try to catch it now, or iguanas, tegus. In one case, there was a report of a sacred ibis in Florida.

Rebekah Wallace: 27:11

Now that is an introduced bird. They're not supposed to be here. And within, again, two hours, the report went out, and then there was an update to the to the record that essentially said got it. So the the rapid response part of EDRR programs is pretty rapid in some cases.

Abigail Garofalo: 27:29

How many verifiers do you have across the country?

Rebekah Wallace: 27:34

I I believe we're close to a thousand. Now in some cases, it's I'm a verifier for a species in a county because that is the the scope of of my responsibility. In some cases, we have verifiers who's a species over the whole US. What we see a lot more of is, like, a category like plants, wildlife, so forth for a state. So because we have a lot of state based partners, so they'll wanna know for invasive plants in Utah, invasive plants in Minnesota, invasive wildlife in Minnesota because they have a a very robust aquatic invasive program, which would include things like mussels and introduced fish and things like that.

Erin Garrett: 28:21

That's really really interesting. And again, coming from the plant world, right, if you don't need that much of a rapid response, I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense. If you report wildlife, you're right. They do move. And so, that is that's just really cool.

Erin Garrett: 28:38

I hadn't ever thought of like, that real time application of EDDMapS, so that's just fascinating.

Abigail Garofalo: 28:45

My mind's just going all around. I like, knew about this program, but I never like, used it that much, and like, now I'm like, everyone needs to know about EDDMapS and be using EDDMapS in the state of Illinois.

Rebekah Wallace: 28:58

We we are across the US and across Canada, and then we are all taxas, so invasive insects, diseases, wildlife, plants. And I will say, so insects is insects with an asterisk because it's more of what the average person might call a bug. So the spiders get lumped in with insects, whereas, you know, the, you know, the scorpions will go into wildlife because that's probably a little more what the average person is thinking. So we are heavily used by professionals, but we're also trying to accommodate the everyday person.

Abigail Garofalo: 29:36

Well, I like the like the app too, just has like a quick like species information on all like all of the ones that you have in your database and I just like love that it's like a quick, oh, I wanna know more about like these grass species. Right? Like, and just can like quick pull it up as like a library as well on top of this reporting tool. So it's just, yeah, really really neat. And then the negative survey sighting is like a really cool scientific concept that a lot of people don't think about.

Abigail Garofalo: 30:02

Like, I went to go look for, you know, round bush clover and I didn't find it.

Rebekah Wallace: 30:08

Negative survey is, like you said, it's an it's an incredibly important thing, for high priority species. So I believe Morton Arboretum is the the main program that is we've worked with for searching for spotted lanternfly. And so what they're doing is they're going out to high probability areas that includes stands of tree of heaven searching for spotted lanternfly. And so they're documenting, I looked for spotted lanternfly and didn't find it. That way they know, okay, in this area, it was looked for in 2020, 2021.

Rebekah Wallace: 30:50

And so if it shows up at a certain point, they'll know, okay, this is a recent infestation based off of previous survey efforts. And so we have a fair number of species where people are searching specifically for them, and they wanna document when they're not finding them so that you have this timeline of when it likely came in and started invading specific areas.

Erin Garrett: 31:16

Yeah. That's really great.

Rebekah Wallace: 31:17

We're hoping for more programs that do things like eDNA, where they're looking for zebra mussel DNA in water bodies, and they can document on a regular basis. Oh, we surveyed for eDNA for these zebra mussels, quagga mussels, things like that, and did not find it so that they can have this history of, for this water body, no zebra mussels until.

Abigail Garofalo: 31:47

And if you're a listener like eDNA, that sounds really cool. Check out last season, we did a whole episode on what is eDNA, the uses, the developing science behind all of it. So definitely refer back to see and connect with like what that concept is and how we can

Rebekah Wallace: 32:04

I 100% intended for that.

Erin Garrett: 32:08

So as we wrap up today's episode, we always like to connect it back to the listener and how they can help. So if our listeners are on board and they say, yes, I'm gonna download the app, I'm gonna use EDDMaps, What makes a report especially helpful from a professional's point of view as someone who's gonna use the data once it's submitted? What are those factors that we wanna make sure that we're reporting?

Rebekah Wallace: 32:32

So as I already mentioned, there's a minimum required information of who, what, where, and when. And then we talked about quantification earlier. You can with the apps and with the websites. You can draw a polygon. This is where I saw this.

Rebekah Wallace: 32:46

So that would automatically fill in something like the infested area. But we also have fields like density, or again, with some of the, you know, wildlife, you can fill in how many you saw, just to give an idea of what what kind of scope we're talking about. Because a single point on a map, you have no idea just looking at it if it's I saw one rush skeleton weed versus I saw a 100 acres of rush skeleton weed, which is a very, very big different thing. And then the other most important thing if you're going to be reporting are images. You can include several images and always, you know, try to get images that someone could be using for identification.

Rebekah Wallace: 33:30

So a really far away image showing the whole scope of the infestation, yeah, that's great as an image to include, but images of how people would be able to tell from a photo that the species you're reporting is accurate to the images that are provided. So with plants, it would be flowers, fruit, leaves, bark, all you know, things like that. With insects, you know, pictures of the insect, a close-up picture of the insect if at all possible, and so on and so forth. Anybody can apply to be a verifier. So if you go into the my EDDMapS section of the EDDMapS website, there's request to be a verifier.

Rebekah Wallace: 34:09

So if you're a ecologist, biologist, botanist, invasive species manager, you know, these are the typical people we tend to see as verifiers, again, because it's their it's the role they play in a lot of cases for as part of whatever career they may have. So we do have have people who, you know, we want to add as verifiers as much as possible because asking people to report is great. We want also those reports to make their way onto the maps into the into the data downloads.

Abigail Garofalo: 34:44

Yeah. I'm thinking of, Erin, like, when it comes to grass identification, there's, like, certain pieces of it that you definitely wanna see, otherwise, you don't know what kind of grass it is. Right? Is it the ligule?

Erin Garrett: 34:55

Oh, look at you. Yeah.

Abigail Garofalo: 34:58

Like like, you'd want a picture of that part of the grass to be like, oh, that's hairy, or that's smooth, or like, red, or whatever, to know that

Erin Garrett: 35:08

Okay, gonna teach grass ID now, Abigail.

Abigail Garofalo: 35:10

I'm just saying like there's certain pieces that you might wanna know. You're like, if I think that this is this species, you know, like a good identifier of like glossy buckthorn is like the underbark is orange. So you might wanna be able to like take a picture of that, for example. Mhmm. As opposed to just being like, here it is. And like, I'm pretty sure. But if if you use some tools to identify it, like taking off the bark or whatever, you might wanna take a picture of that to report it as well, because that's the thing that the verifier might wanna know.

Rebekah Wallace: 35:39

That is a very good tip.

Abigail Garofalo: 35:41

Awesome. Well, Rebekah, is there anything else you wanted us to know about EDDMapS before we kinda close out and move on to our everyday observations?

Rebekah Wallace: 35:49

Would you like a funny story about a time when we did not require verification for a record to show up on EDDMapS?

Abigail Garofalo: 35:59

Uh, yeah.

Rebekah Wallace: 36:01

Okay. So EDDMapS did not start out with all records having to be verified before they showed up on the maps. We were noting on the records which were verified and which were not yet verified.

Rebekah Wallace: 36:15

It's a a similar concept to how iNaturalist data will have that it's needing identification before becoming, you know, research grade, so so on and so forth. Many years ago, I was still here, but it was still many years ago because I've been here a long time. Someone accidentally reported just by holding the their phone in their hand, giant African snail in Florida. Now giant African snail is a high priority invasive species, rapid response type species in Florida.

Rebekah Wallace: 36:49

And the guy who reported it didn't know that he had accidentally reported it just from having his phone in his hand. He didn't know the app was open, and there were many calls had both to us and to the to the individual who reported it. And not long after that, we decided to make it so that it was just verified data that was showing up on maps and in data downloads because that way, it was as easy as possible for people to know that the data they were looking at was all verified data.

Abigail Garofalo: 37:21

I'm like picturing like, essentially like firefighters of the invasive plant world or of like the plant management world being like, go go go, we gotta make sure it's not here, it can't get established, it establishes really quickly, blah blah blah, like, it was actually like essentially a pocket dial.

Erin Garrett: 37:38

Yeah.

Abigail Garofalo: 37:38

Your an invasive

Rebekah Wallace: 37:40

There was a and this did not happen in EDDMapS, but it was in iNaturalist. Someone reported spotted lanternfly in Texas couple years ago on iNaturalist. And the response that was had in the invasive species, forest pest, so forth community was tremendous. Mhmm. Because as it turned out, I I believe what happened was there was a student who was in a class, and they were having to report so many things through iNaturalist.

Rebekah Wallace: 38:12

And I believe they found an image online of an insect and just used it. Did not know the implications of using that particular insect. So the the image was accurate. The image was of a spotted lanternfly. It was just that the location was inaccurate because the student was trying to complete a project.

Erin Garrett: 38:32

Crazy.

Abigail Garofalo: 38:33

That's so funny. You know what this tells me though? This is like, your reports matter. Like, people are reading them, people are taking them seriously, to the point where like, you may get a call. Like, you may get a call. If you're like, oh man, like, it doesn't matter if I just, you know, these thousands of reports that Erin put in, like, now we know about that piece, and it matters. People are reading those, people are verifying those, and looking at them, and you know, it's not just putting into the void, essentially.

Rebekah Wallace: 39:05

That's something I talk about a lot with people about the data, is that when your record is verified, unless you've opted out, you get a notification, hey, your record's been verified. So they know that that someone out there looked at their record. And then once or twice a year, I look at Google Scholar and see how data in EDDMaps is being used in journal articles. We also know every now and then we see an EDDMapS map showing up in news articles. If the news article is about, like, tegu or pythons or I think brown marmorated stink bug had a map at one point that that showed up on a news article. The the data is definitely getting used in a variety of different ways

Erin Garrett: 39:51

Mhmm.

Rebekah Wallace: 39:51

By a variety of different people for so many so many outcomes. So it's really interesting this to occasionally get an email from someone saying, this is my project. This is what I'm doing, and help them achieve their goals.

Abigail Garofalo: 40:07

Very cool. Alright. Well, thank you so much, Rebekah, for all of the information about this really, really powerful and incredible tool. Now we're going to finish today's episode with everyday observation where we highlight the mundane and normal of our environment that's actually really interesting. So Erin, I'm gonna pick on you to go first.

Erin Garrett: 40:29

Okay. So we're recording this episode in January, and in the winter season, for the past month, I've just noticed we've been having some really magnificent sunsets, and it's just I don't know. I'll be leaving work and driving home or stopping to run an errand, and I come outside at the perfect moment, and it's just like brilliant orange or bright pink, and it's just been, like, such a treat that we take for granted every day that the sun goes down, but sometimes it puts on a magnificent show. And I'm not a weather expert, so I'm gonna link in the show notes a blog that kind of explains why in the wintertime we might have these more brilliant sunsets, but just like part of it is like cooler air temperatures, cleaner air that we don't have, there's not as much stuff in the air like in the summertime, but it's just been really fun to just like at that time of the day, oh, just look at the sky and see what the colors are today, and I don't know. I've just been enjoying that lately this winter season, so that's my little everyday observation for this time.

Abigail Garofalo: 41:31

Very cool. Exploring into the abiotic realm of things. I love it. Alright. Rebekah, go ahead.

Rebekah Wallace: 41:38

Recently, our yard has been mobbed by birds. We've had these flocks of birds in our yard, and so I reached out to a friend and she helped to ID them for me as brown headed cowbirds, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I I knew about them, but I hadn't known that they they flocked like that. It also solved a mystery for me where I was hearing water dripping outside, and apparently that's one of their calls.

Erin Garrett: 42:04

Oh.

Abigail Garofalo: 42:06

Cool!

Rebekah Wallace: 42:07

Kept hearing water dripping sounds in addition to, like, normal bird calls. And I was like, what is what is going on out here? Where is their water dripping? It was it was the birds. It was the dozens and dozens of birds.

Abigail Garofalo: 42:20

Cool. I know they're native in Illinois because a lot of they're they're a parasitic bird, which is the really cool fact about the cowbirds. They lay their eggs in other birds nests, and then but they don't raise them, they make the other, like, the home bird raise them, and then the the baby bird will push the other birds out of the nest. And then too, if like, you try and take that egg out, the adult cowbird will come back and destroy the nest and the other babies. So like, a lot there's like a lot of common practice, a lot of like like nature minded folks and bird lovers will come by and be like, oh, it's I saw a brown headed cowbird egg, and they'll wanna take it out to save the bird. And we're like, well, that's kinda the way nature goes. You kinda have to let the parasitism happen. It is an example of like wildlife parasites, like not a fungus, not a bacteria, or or a plant or anything like that. It's it's an animal parasite, which is kinda cool. Mhmm. So

Rebekah Wallace: 43:20

I think they might be part of the migratory, like, bird act.

Abigail Garofalo: 43:24

Okay. So, yeah. You're also not supposed to mess with their eggs. News for everybody, not just because it's the way nature works, but also because it's illegal, please do not remove brown headed cow bird eggs.

Erin Garrett: 43:37

Abigail, wrap us up with your everyday observation.

Abigail Garofalo: 43:41

Yeah. Mine is also kind of on the abiotic side. So I am in the, like, northeastern Illinois area. It is January, and I woke up this morning to snow, which not abnormal for January, but a little bit like yesterday, it was like I wore kind of like a warmer jacket, but not like a heavy coat, and so I was like, what did I just wake up to? And it was really I was like, do I even go into the office today?

Abigail Garofalo: 44:10

Because it was really, like, visibility was really low. And so, I get a text on my phone and it was like, snow squall warning until like 9AM, 10AM or something, and I was like, squall? That's a fun word. So I looked it up, and a snow squall is when there is like a big cold front comes in. Right?

Abigail Garofalo: 44:34

And then combined with high winds causes really low visibility. So it's one of these weather terms used for safety essentially to like explain to people, although like low visibility seems a little easier in my brain to explain than just snow squall. But we like to term things in the natural resources world, and so snow squall essentially just needing really low visibility because of these high winds doing all of this snow blowing around, and it's usually accompanied with, like, low amounts of snow. Like, we have barely enough to cover the grass. There was enough to like stick, but not enough to like be like, wow, it snowed, you know, like and so it was just kind of really cool and crazy to see that they're like the way these conditions exist to create this like short burst one time event that's actually, like, really impactful. Like, I'm sure the expressways this morning were a nightmare. Nobody remembered how to drive. And and also, like, it was just, like, really hard to see. And probably a lot of people were late for work this morning because of this natural resource phenomenon that occurred. So snow squall. Fun fact for the day.

Erin Garrett: 45:41

Thanks, Abigail.

Abigail Garofalo: 45:42

Well, Rebekah, thank you again so much for coming on the show and talking to us about this really amazing resource. We just really appreciate having you.

Rebekah Wallace: 45:49

Yeah. Thank you for inviting me.

Abigail Garofalo: 45:51

Well, this has been another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast. Check us out next week where we will talk with TJ Benson about historic trends of invasives. This podcast is University of Illinois Extension production, hosted and edited by Abigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett, and Amy Lefringhouse. Marketing and communications are by Emily Steele.

Matt Wiley: 46:16

University of Illinois Extension.