Weather stations for biodiversity – a handbook

Biodiversity loss is one of the biggest issues facing our planet. While it is clear that the underlying causes, as with climate change, are man-made, documenting and quantifying biodiversity change both in space and time is challenging. A promising approach to tackle this problem is to combine cutting-edge sensor technology with biodiversity informatics, and to harness expert knowledge for the automation of monitoring. Analogous to weather stations, a network of modular and Automated Multisensor stations for Monitoring of species Diversity (AMMODs) can record observations, identify species and transfer data to a database where they can be further analysed. AMMODs make it possible to achieve better temporal and geographical coverage and resolution while requiring little maintenance. The experiences made during a 3-year project using AMMOD stations are presented in this handbook. Several important organism groups were investigated, including plants, insects, birds and mammals. Devices for detecting plant volatile organic compounds, genetic methods, audio recorders, insect and camera traps were tested, as well as solutions for power supply and data management. We hope that this volume provides a blueprint that will contribute to improving the long-term monitoring of biodiversity and its conservation on our unique planet.