Com-BAT-ing Ecological Challenges
The Sewanee Bat Study has collected years of data on the behavior and habitats of local forest-dwelling bat species. We are analyzing the data and creating a dashboard to help make data-driven forest management decisions. Dr. Turner has invited us to help organize the data to monitor trends in bats over time, ask which forest management practices are best for bats, and allocate resources accordingly. We decided that an interactive dashboard would be the best way to display such a rich dataset, as this allows Dr. Turner and her team to manipulate graphs as they wish to paint a picture of crucial management areas, species proportions, and much more.
The opening page of our dashboard showcases a small paragraph that gives context to our dashboards purpose. There's a list of key definitions that help the user understand certain technical terms used in our graphs. Also included is a list of bats found in Sewanee with their associated species code, an explanation of the land management practices, links to further research conducted by other organizations, and a section for introducing our team. On the right-most side of our dashboard is a list of the sections we have available to explore on the dashboard with a small description so it's easier to navigate.
This tab will display an overview of bat activity trends across all recorded years, with the option to compare across forest management types. Also available are optional weather overlays tracking average wind, rain, and temperature in each year.
This tab will display bat activity trends by month of the year, with the option to compare across years or forest management types. Also available are optional weather overlays tracking the average wind, rain, and temperature in each month.
This tab will display bat activity trends by hour of the day on a 24-hour cycle, with the option to compare across months, years, or forest management types.
This tab will display the annual bat activity in any given geographical compartment, with the option to compare across sampling sites.
This tab will display the proportion of bat activity accounted for by each species in each year, with the option to compare across forest management types.
This tab will display a graph of sampling activity over time, as well as the proportions of noise and unidentifiable bat calls for each sensor and microphone.
First, the you will need to ensure...
- you have R (available free at https://cran.r-project.org/)
- you have RStudio (available free at https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/)
Then, before running, make sure...
- you have a main folder that contains two subfolders; 'Data' and 'Code'
- the subfolder called 'Data' holds all the data files, sorted into a folder tree containing paths of the following format:
- Compartment #/C#_S#/... , where the first subfolder stands for compartment number, and the second subfolder stands for site ID composed of compartment number and site number separated by an underscore
- the subfolder called 'Code' holds all the code files from this repository, such as the data read, the exploratory markdowns, and the dashboard
To run...
- open RStudio, and open Bats-Dashboard/app.R
- set your RStudio session working directory to the 'Code' folder (top of the RStudio interface: Session > Set Working Directory > Choose Directory)
- click 'Run App' in the upper righthand corner of the main viewing frame
Bats:
- Place the new speadsheet (csv or excel) into the appropriate subfolder of the Data file tree
- open RStudio, and open DataClean-bats.Rmd
- run DataClean-bats.Rmd by clicking 'Knit' in the upper left corner of the main viewing frame
Weather:
- add it to the appropriate SUD Weather Station.xlsx tab
Sensor and sites:
- add it to the sensorCSdates.csv
Bat species:
- add it to the BatSpecies.csv