Update 4 and Conclusion!

 Beluga Bits:

For this last week I went back to identifying beluga pictures and figured out how to switch the website to dark theme, both more exciting for me personally than they probably should! I classified over 200 pictures over two 30 and 45 minute sessions.

As I poked around the website, I found some of the pictures rated as favorites for the project. You can find the full gallery HERE, but I have added a few I especially liked below!

Orcasound:

This week, I made the huge discovery that you can listen to all of the sounds other listeners have flagged HERE! I don't know why it took me so long to find that part of the Orcasound project, but I am glad I did. Below I will link a few recent clips to give an idea of what we were listening for.

Orca clip: This is the sound I was most wanting to hear during this project. I never heard one of these live myself, but it is really cool to hear Orcas!

Boat clip: These are the sounds I heard most. You can get an impression of the boats growing closer and then farther as the pitch and volume of their engine sounds rise and then fall.

Humpback clip: I flagged a few sounds like this but was not sure exactly what to label them. The listener who flagged this one labeled it a Humpback!

Time Logged

November 13 - 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm (North San Juan Channel feed)

November 17 - 12 am to 3:30 pm (North San Juan Channel feed)

FathomVerse: 

I decided to use my accumulated points this week and see a little bit of the extras hidden in the app. I found a Solmissus jellyfish meditation video, behind the scenes clips explaining the cameras used to take the underwater footage and how the app will help researchers.

In my dives this week, I stuck to the Expedition mode so that my time on the app would help researchers most. Unfortunately, that means I was only looking for the same animals I had access to last week. I understand why the app requires you to do three training missions on each individual animal before you can unlock it in the expedition mode, but I do wish I could have mixed it up more in what I looked for in the Expedition mode without having to spending a whole train ride training on new species. Regardless, I enjoyed my dives this week and hope my efforts will help the researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. 

The MBARI just this week announced the discovery of a new sea slug using the same types of deep sea photos I have been working on! That announcement does not mention FathomVerse, but it makes my train ride citizen science sessions more exciting than ever. Their research is expanded on in the journal below:

Robison, B.H. and S.H.D. Haddock. 2024. Discovery and description of a remarkable bathypelagic nudibranch, Bathydevius caudactylus, gen. et. sp. nov. Deep-Sea Research Part I, 214: 104414.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2024.104414 

Conclusion 

I enjoyed my time with all three of these projects. FathomVerse and Orcasound are both things I plan to continue to return to after the end of this project. Orcasound is great background noise and makes my study sessions more enjoyable and fulfilling while FathomVerse is a good fit for my daily commutes and turning into a relaxing habit. I may return to Beluga Bits from time to time, and I will keep the project bookmarked, but it is harder for me to fit into my schedule. For all three, I was proud of contributing to the study of the natural world and surprised by how easy it is to get involved!

Thank you for reading about my progress with these three projects! I hope that I inspired you to listen to some orca feeds or identify some jellies. It is easier than you may think and makes a difference when people all over the world put in a small effort to extend our larger understanding!

Update 3!

Hello again!

Beluga Bits:

This time, I continued with the beluga pictures over jelly pictures although I think the jellies were more fun. I ID'd 150 photos over a 45 minute session just before posting this update on November 9th  from 10:30 am to 11:15 am and logged a few shorter sessions in the week prior.

Interestingly, I checked the project stats on the competed subjects, but the complete percentage went down from the 94% I reported in my last update and is now sitting at 76%. I am not sure what the reason for this is as the images being worked on are still the same batch from 2023 as far as I can tell, but the number of subjects has increased from 43,715 to 46,479. They must have added a new batch of images!

Orcasound:

My listening has continued but not felt successful yet. I enjoy the feeds as a good white noise to listen to while studying at least, but I really hope to hear some whale sounds by the end of this semester since several of the sites list fall as a good time for hearing orcas. I switched to the Port Townsend station as I was preparing this post just to try a different area and hope for a better chance.

Time Logged

October 28 - 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm (North San Juan Channel feed)

November 3 - 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm (North San Juan Channel feed)

November 7 - 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm (North San Juan Channel feed)

November 9 - 9:00 am to 11:30 am (Port Townsend feed)

FathomVerse: 

I have continued to play on my train rides to work (but missed a few days in the last two weeks as work, school, and life made it harder to remember this project before 7 am). It remains a surprisingly fun complement to early morning audiobook listening.

I recorded and uploaded a video of what one expedition (the mode where you are identifying the most uncertain images to train the model) looked like. I selected octopus, shrimp, and jelly as the missions for my dive. In the video you may be able to get a better idea of the controls and gameplay than in my previous posts. Mostly when playing you can tap the screen to send out a pulse that will discover any nearby animals. Then taping the animal picture will open the full image and give you the option to collect it if you think it is one of the animals you are looking for. As your avatar moves, you can press the boost icon in the center of the screen for a short boost and then when you reach a crossroads along the paths of bubbles you may continue forward and loop back around or turn onto a new path. Eventually once you have found all/enough of the animals you can end the dive and then sort the animals you selected. Finally, there is a screen showing how your sorting fit with the other players who have found that animal as well as listing the experience rewards you get for completing the dive.

Update 2!

 Welcome back! 

Update #2:

Beluga Bits - 
The project has reached 94% complete for the year with just over 2000 of the 43,715 subjects left to identify. 

With my session this time, I tried to identify belugas themselves and not the jellies also captured by the project. The process was much the same, except there was more rounds of questions to identify specific body parts on the whales. I identified over 50 images in one session and found the process a little easier than for the jellies. There is little ambiguity when there is a beluga or not and I think I am better at IDing parts of belugas than choosing between different jelly or jellyfish.

Orcasound - 
I am still am enjoying having this in the background. My problem is that I almost find it too soothing and worry I will not notice a cool clip to flag! So far, I have been sticking to the North San Juan Channel feed and hoping to catch the pod of orcas mentioned by the description there, but I haven't heard them yet. I do think I heard a few animal sounds this time, but no orcas yet.


    Time Logged

    October 17 - 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm

    October 19 - 12 am to 3:00 pm

    October 25 - 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm

FathomVerse - 
My train ride games continue! I finished training on jellies, pyrosomes, salps, octopus, squid, sea cucumbers, and shrimp. There are still more to train on, but I was finally able to try the expedition mode and ID the creatures I have trained on with pictures the community has not identified reliably yet. The process for the new pictures was basically the same, except there were several that had no animals or were unclear.

The game itself is simple but pretty fun. I poked around in the settings this week and discovered you can change the music from lofi tunes, to scientific outpost recordings similar to Orcasound. I didn't change the music because I have been loving the calming ambient music from the game in the background as I listen to an audiobook and ID animals on the train.

As I play I think there will be videos, images, and other neat things I can unlock after playing enough. I find the systems the designers use to make it feel like a game and less like a citizen science project interesting. If the game was more involved I think it would get in the way of the IDing, but as it is they struck a nice balance. 

Update 1 and Project Descriptions

This blog will chronicle my time working with several Citizen Science projects involving identification of aquatic creatures. Thank you for reading!

Project 1: Beluga Bits

For this project I will identify pictures of beluga whales and jellyfish. They are 91% complete with categorizing their dataset with 58,903 completed pictures after 868,726 classifications made by volunteers at the time of me writing this. The photos are taken during beluga season in July and August each year. I am planning on making time for one 30-60 minute session of IDing each week!

Project 2: Orca Sound

This project gives anyone access to the live feeds of 5 listening stations off the coast of Washington/Canada. You can choose which area to listen to and then flag points on the feed for scientists if you hear interesting activity. I am planning to listen several times a week during study sessions and record any activity I find here.

Project 3: FathomVerse

This is an app you can download for most smartphones that tries to gamify animal identification. You play by selecting 3 species of undersea creatures to look for and then going on a "dive" where you will find various pictures to ID as either one of your three selected animals. There are other pictures that may be a look-a-like or completely different animal. After each dive, you get some experience points as a reward based on how accurate your answers match with other players answers. The data created by the community of players is used by researchers to train algorithms to better identify these animals in the future.

Update #1:

Beluga Bits - My first BB session was spent identifying jellyfish. For each picture you rate the quality of the image, if the photo contains jellyfish, jellies, or both, if the photo has one or more jellyfish/jelly, and then finally what species is/are present. 

I submitted over 100 pictures in a 40 minute session. I will try to keep better track of the totals going forward, but did not consider that for this time until too late. The process of identifying the jellies and jellyfish was fun and easy to get into. It's very easy for me to think "I'll just do one more" and keep going!

Orca Sound - I have kept this tab open and active for most of my time doing school work this week. It provides a really pleasant background noise for me when I am trying to be productive and focus actually. Unfortunately, I have not heard any major activity yet. I once or twice flagged a moment where I thought I heard some marine life, but so far the noise has generally been boats passing and creating rhythmic drones that fade in and out from propellers every 20 minutes or so depending on the time of day.

I have spent most of my time listening to the "North San Juan Channel" feed because ethe description for it says Orcas pass by there October-March. Fingers crossed I catch them!

Time Logged

October 7 - 11:30 am to 12:30 pm

October 13 - 7:00 pm to 10:30 pm

October 16 - 11:00 am to 12:30 pm

FathomVerse - I have been playing this game while on my train ride to work in the morning and trying to make a daily habit. The gameplay is very simple and takes the form of guiding a little star shape along various paths of bubbles and tapping the screen to speed up along sections you have already explored or send out a pulse which will discover the pictures of hidden animals. Once you fond an animal picture, you can drag it to your collection for review at the end if you think it is one of the animals you are looking for or move on. It is very simple, pretty relaxing, and not a bad thing to do early in the Moring while listening to an audiobook for my train ride. 

The most interesting thing for me so far is that despite having played for over 2 hours, I am still in the "training" missions for most animals. I will not be able to go on "expedition" dives and ID unknown pictures until I complete the training for all animals. Hopefully by the next update I will be able to report on that!

Below is what the summary screen at the end of a dive is like.