About us

Team

In an interdisciplinary team, we research and develop digital tools for the urban experience of nature. Beispielsweise erproben wir den Einsatz von Mustererkennung in der Artbestimmung. With our app Naturblick we support the direct experience of nature in the city. Mit vielfältigen Funktionen kannst du Natur in der Stadt erkunden, Tiere und Pflanzen bestimmen und deine Beobachtungen speichern.

Ulrike Sturm (Projektleitung)
Susan Karlebowski (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeit)
Martin Tscholl (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeit)
Petter Arvidsson (Full-Stack Entwicklung)
Johannes Ebbighausen (Full-Stack Entwicklung)
Mario Lasseck (Entwicklung Mustererkennung)

For nature

Only if we see ourselves as an active part of nature, learn to understand its mechanisms and work together for nature can we develop solutions to the greatest challenges of our time, climate change and the ongoing extinction of species, and initiate social change.

Human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene

Human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene Our research is part of the Human-Nature Relations in the Anthropocene working group at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin in the Department of Society and Nature. The aim of the working group is to initiate social change in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Cooperations

We are pleased about the valuable cooperation with related projects and organizations and are always open to new collaborations. The Citizen Science project Garden Pollinators investigated how garden features and horticultural practices can promote wild bee diversity and support their pollination efficiency. If you are interested in a collaboration, please contact us at naturblick@mfn.berlin.

Open Source

Open source is important to us, which is why we are making the app freely available. This allows all users to view, modify, and further develop the source code. The app is available for iOS and Android at the following links:

Partner

During the pilot phase (March 2015 to May 2018) we were advised and supported by representatives of the following Berlin institutions in an advisory board:

Former Team members

Dr. Omid Khorramshahi (Software development)
Oliver Adameck (student assistant)
Tina Birnbach (student assistant)
Alexander Buhl (App developer), now with Mediasphere for Nature
Saskia Gennrich (Software developer)
Gregor Hagedorn (Project Lead)
Madeleine Hallmann (student assistant)
Laura Hermlin-Leder (student assistant)
Alice Kracht (student assistant)
Anne Lange (student assistant)
Joanna Mitchell (student assistant)
Paul Pienkny (student assistant)
Isabel Steglich (student assistant)
Marcel Stehle (intern)
Madeleine Dontschev (student assistant)

Awards

Awarded by UN Decade of Biodiversity 2020
Awarded by UN Decade of Biodiversity 2018
Awarded by the German Council for Sustainable Development in the competition "Future, ready, go! - the Education Competition for Sustainability" 2017
Awarded by the German Council for Sustainable Development "Werkstatt-N Projekt 2016

Funding

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). Duration: March 2015 to April 2021

Publications

Citizen Science

Jäckel, D., Mortega, K.G., Darwin, S., Brockmeyer, U., Sturm, U., Lasseck, M., Moczek, N., Lehmann, G.U.C., Voigt-Heucke, S.L. (2023) Community engagement and data quality: Best practices and lessons learned from a citizen science project on birdsong. J. Ornithol. 164, 233–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-022-02018-8
von Gönner, J., Herrmann, T. M., Bruckermann, T., Eichinger, M., Hecker, S., Klan, F., Lorke, J., Richter, A., Sturm, U., & Voigt-Heucke, S. (2023). Citizen science's transformative impact on science, citizen empowerment and socio-political processes. Socio-Ecological Practice Research, 5, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42532-022-00136-4
Planillo, A., Fiechter, L., Sturm. U., Voigt-Heucke, S., Kramer-Schadt S. (2021) Citizen science data for urban planning: comparing different sampling schemes for modelling urban bird distribution. Landscape and Urban Planning 211(6). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104098
Sturm, U. und Tscholl, M. (2019). The role of digital user feedback in a user-centred development process in citizen science.Journal of Science Communication, 18 (1): 1-19. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.18010203
Luna, S., Gold, M., Albert, A., Ceccaroni, L., Claramunt, B., Danylo, O., Haklay, M., Kottmann, R., Kyba, C., Piera, J., Radicchi, A., Schade, S., and Sturm, U. (2018) Developing mobile applications for environmental and biodiversity citizen science: considerations and recommendations. In: Joly, A., Vrochidis, S., Karatzas, K., Karppinen, A., Bonnet, P. (eds) Multimedia Tools and Applications for Environmental & Biodiversity Informatics. (pp. 9-30) Springer, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-76445-0_2
Sturm, U., Moormann, A. und Faber, A. (2018) Mobile learning in environmental citizen science: An initial survey of current practice in Germany. it - Information Technology, 60(1), pp. 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1515/itit-2017-0021
Sturm, U., Schade, S., Ceccaroni, L., Gold, M., Kyba, C., Claramunt, B., Haklay, M., Kasperowski, D., Albert, A., Piera, J., Brier, J., Kullenberg, C., Luna, S. (2018) Defining principles for mobile apps and platforms development in citizen science. Research Ideas and Outcomes 4: e23394. DOI: 10.3897/rio.4.e23394 (V2) https://riojournal.com/articles.php?id=23394
Sturm, U., Schade, S., Ceccaroni, L., Gold, M., Kyba, C., Claramunt, B., Haklay, M., Kasperowski, D., Albert, A., Piera, J., Brier, J., Kullenberg, C., Luna, S. (2017) Defining principles for mobile apps and platforms development in citizen science. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e21283. DOI: 10.3897/rio.3.e21283 https://riojournal.com/articles.php?id=21283

Environmental education

Moormann, A., Sturm, U. (2021) Naturerfahrung durch Citizen Science-Projekte. In: Gebhard U., Lude A., Möller A., Moormann A. (eds) Naturerfahrung und Bildung. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35334-6_21
Sturm, U., Voigt-Heucke, S., Mortega, K.G., Moormann, A. (2020) Die Artenkenntnis von Berliner Schüler_innen am Beispiel einheimischer Vögel. Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaft. DOI: 10.1007/s40573-020-00117-8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40573-020-00117-8
Sturm, U. (2020) Mit dem Smartphone in die Natur. Chancen und Herausforderungen der digitalen Umweltbildung für Praxis und Forschung. Mitteilungen aus der Naturschutzakadmie, 31-33.

Pattern recognition and bioacoustics research

Jäckel, D., Mortega, K.G., Darwin S., Brockmeyer, U., Sturm, U., Lasseck, M., Moczek N., Gerlind, U. C. Lehmann, Silke L. Voigt‑Heucke (2023) Community engagement and data quality: best practices and lessons learned from a citizen science project on birdsong. In: Journal of Ornithology 164, 233–244. DOI: 10.1007/s10336-022-02018-8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10336-022-02018-8
Wägele, JW., Bodesheim, P., Bourlat, S. J., Denzler, J., Diepenbroek, M., Fonseca, V., Frommolt, K.-H., Geiger, M.F., Gemeinholzer, B., Glöckner, F. O., Haucke, T., Kirse, A., Kölpin, A., Kostadinov, I., Kühl, H. S., Kurth, F., Lasseck, M., Liedke, S., Losch, F., Müller, S., Wildermann, S. (2022) Towards a multisensor station for automated biodiversity monitoring. In: Basic and Applied Ecology, Volume 59, 2022, ISSN 1439-1791. DOI: 10.1016/j.baae.2022.01.003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2022.01.003
Jäckel, D., Mortega, K.G., Sturm, U., Brockmeyer, U., Khorramshahi, O., Voigt-Heucke, S.L. (2021) Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research. PLoS ONE 16(6): e0253763. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253763
Stehle, M., Lasseck, M., Khorramshahi, O., Sturm, U. (2020) Evaluation of acoustic pattern recognition of nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) recordings by citizens. Research Ideas and Outcomes 6: e50233. DOI: 10.3897/rio.6.e50233. https://riojournal.com/article/50233/
Lasseck, M. (2019) Bird Species Identification in Soundscapes. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2380/paper_86.pdf
Bonnet, P., Goëau, H., Hang, S.T., Lasseck, M., Sulc, M., Malécot, V., Jauzein, P., Melet, J.C., You, C., Joly, A. (2018) Plant Identification: Experts vs. Machines in the Era of Deep Learning. In: Joly, A., Vrochidis, S., Karatzas, K., Karppinen, A., Bonnet, P. (eds) Multimedia Tools and Applications for Environmental & Biodiversity Informatics. Multimedia Systems and Applications. Springer, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-76445-0_8
Lasseck, M. (2018) Acoustic Bird Detection with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks. In: Plumbley MD et al. (eds) Proceedings of the Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events 2018 Workshop (DCASE2018), pp. 143-147, Tampere University of Technology. https://dcase.community/documents/challenge2018/technical_reports/DCASE2018_Lasseck_76.pdf
Lasseck, M. (2018) Machines vs. Human Experts: Contribution to the ExpertLifeCLEF 2018 Plant Identification Task. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2125/paper_151.pdf
Lasseck, M. (2018) Audio-based Bird Species Identification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2125/paper_140.pdf
Lasseck, M. (2017) Image-based Plant Species Identification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings., https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1866/paper_174.pdf
Lasseck, M. (2016) Improving Bird Identification using Multiresolution Template Matching and Feature Selection during Training. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1609/16090490.pdf
Lasseck, M. (2015) Towards Automatic Large-Scale Identification of Birds in Audio Recordings. In: Mothe, J. et al. (eds) Experimental IR Meets Multilinguality, Multimodality, and Interaction. CLEF 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 9283. Springer, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-24027-5_39

Human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene

Sturm, U., Heyne, E., Herrmann, E., Arends, B., Dieter, A.-L., Dorfman, E., Drauschke, F., Heller, N., Kahn, R., Kaiser, K., Koch, G., Kramar, N., Mansilla Sánchez, A., Mauelshagen. F., Nadim, T., Pell, R., Petersen, M., Schmidt-Loske, K., Scholz, H., Sterling, C., Trischler, H., Wagner, S. (2022) Anthropocenic Objects. Collecting Practices for the Age of Humans. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e89446. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e89446
Tscholl, M. & Sturm, U. (2022) Posting nature: A critical perspective on analysing cultural ecosystem services on Instagram. Journal of Environmental Media, 3 (2): 255 - 271. https://doi.org/10.1386/jem_00089_1
Tscholl, M., Weißpflug, M., Wedel, M., Sturm, U. (2022) People and nature – fostering inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration for biodiversity and sustainable human interactions. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 35(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2022.2104784
Tscholl, M., Weißpflug, M., Wedel, M. & Sturm, U. (Hrsg.) (2022) ‘Special Issue: People and Nature’, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, Volume 35, Issue 3 (2022)