Interesting links I found during this past month

Here are some internet natural history links that I found personally interesting during the last month. Some of these links were sent to me by other folks with similar interests. Most I found by browsing my collections of websites that I glance through daily, or from focused-interest emails that I subscribe to and come to me on a daily or weekly basis.

Here are links sent by Phil Bird (CVC Specialist, Watershed Monitoring) for reporting and for data access to local detailed natural history information: (These links are also in the middle of the earlier post about Phil’s talk)

- The Natural Heritage Information Centre (NHIC) reporting link: natural-heritage-information-centre-nhic-observation-reporting-form
- CVC now has an open data portal which includes fish data: cvc-camaps.opendata.arcgis.com
- A separate interactive map for fish records: CVC Fish Data

How a quest for mathematical truth and complex models can lead to useless scientific predictions – new research. Author: Arnald Puy

- This link about complex models harkens back to my interest in theoretical ecology from my undergraduate years when I got to take graduate courses in plant ecology during my third and fourth years as an undergraduate. (There were five other botany students, and the others were all interested in plant physiology, so I asked to take graduate courses as undergraduate credits.)
  - https://theconversation.com/how-a-quest-for-mathematical-truth-and-complex-models-can-lead-to-useless-scientific-predictions-new-research-192454?

By fact-checking Thoreau’s observations at Walden Pond, we showed how old diaries and specimens can inform modern research Author: Tara K. Miller

- I’m fascinated with iNaturalist (and eBird, and the various other observation collection projects). I often focus on phenology, reporting what’s flowering in certain places at certain times, e.g., along the train tracks through Orangeville as the seasons change.
  - Fact-checking Thoreau’s observations to assist modern research

Why the spongy moth outbreak has vanished in Québec: Author: Emma Despland