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InsectAI Annual Meeting 2025 Working group 4 workshop

 by Charlie Outhwaite

At this year’s annual meeting in Tirana, Albania, Working Group 4 made progress towards their aim of producing a toolbox to aid users in the analysis of both traditional- and computer-vision-based monitoring data. This toolbox is one of the key deliverables of WG4 and we hope that it will connect users with available tools and methods they might not have been aware of and will provide guidance to those who are new in this research area.

Working group 4

Working Group 4 (WG4) is dedicated to addressing the downstream analysis of AI output to understand widespread insect declines using new technologies. The focus is on developing statistical methods for analyzing AI data and integrating it with traditional biodiversity data, alongside training ecologists in interpreting AI output. The objectives include establishing an analytical toolbox, connecting researchers across technologies, and training ecologists.

This week – starting work on the toolbox!

At the annual meeting, we then worked together to discuss how best to organise such a toolbox, i.e. what are the categories which might separate out the different kinds of explorations that are performed on the data. We also went through the list of tools and started compiling information on them within a spreadsheet. This included the programming language required, a short description of what the tool can do, and links to relevant materials.

Before the annual meeting, we sent an online survey to the Action to gather information on the tools people use for the exploratory analysis phase of their research. We had 65 responses, so thank you to anyone who took part as this was a lot more than were expecting! From the survey we were able to gauge how priorities differed depending on the type of data you were using as well as a list of tools that are currently being used.

 

Moving forward, we hope to build this spreadsheet into a more user friendly online system, hopefully linked to databases being produced by working groups 2 and 3. There will be plenty of opportunity to get involved with the development of this toolbox, either as an STSM or within a virtual working group so do keep an eye out for more through the e-COST email system and on Slack. Alternatively, get in touch with Charlie or the other working group leads.