Assessing Species Distribution Using Google Street View: A Pilot Study with the Pine Processionary Moth

Abstract

Mapping species spatial distribution using spatial inference and prediction requires a lot of data. Occurrence data are generally not easily available from the literature and are very time-consuming to collect in the field. For that reason, we designed a survey to explore to which extent large-scale databases such as Google maps and Google street view could be used to derive valid occurrence data. We worked with the Pine Processionary Moth (PPM) Thaumetopoea pityocampa because the larvae of that moth build silk nests that are easily visible. The presence of the species at one location can therefore be inferred from visual records derived from the panoramic views available from Google street view. We designed a standardized procedure allowing evaluating the presence of the PPM on a sampling grid covering the landscape under study. The outputs were compared to field data. We investigated two landscapes using grids of different extent and mesh size. Data derived from Google street view were highly similar to field data in the large-scale analysis based on a square grid with a mesh of 16 km (96% of matching records). Using a 2 km mesh size led to a strong divergence between field and Google-derived data (46% of matching records). We conclude that Google database might provide useful occurrence data for mapping the distribution of species which presence can be visually evaluated such as the PPM. However, the accuracy of the output strongly depends on the spatial scales considered and on the sampling grid used. Other factors such as the coverage of Google street view network with regards to sampling grid size and the spatial distribution of host trees with regards to road network may also be determinant.

Use of Tencent Street View Imagery for Visual Perception of Streets

“…The degree of color inhomogeneity in the various regions can be measured by a function that characterizes the color dispersion of the image regions. When the regions of a panoramic image have been consolidated, its color dispersion is defined as follows: (16) where N represents the total number of pixels, N r represents the number of pixels in the rth region, x r i represents the color value of the ith pixel in the rth region, and x r mean represents the mean color value of the rth region. J l grows continuously with each iterative cycle of the region consolidation process, whereas the number of regions in the entire panoramic image, K l , decreases continuously.…”

“…A very wide range of urban studies was based on street view images, with examples including studies on three-dimensional (3D) urban reconstructions [11][12][13], specific scene recognition [14], investigations of plant and animal species [15][16][17], route selection [8,18], perceived safety evaluation [19], data extraction on alcohol consumption [20], evaluation of the visual perception of streets [21,22], and so on. In particular, the visual perception of streets serves as a basis for urban landscape planning and residential quality of life [22].…”

Assessing the extent and the environmental drivers of Eucalyptus globulus wildling establishment in Portugal: results from a countrywide survey

“…GSV has also been used in other studies to assess species distribution (Rousselet et al 2013). Our goal was to obtain the maximum possible count (from both approaches) reflecting the site potential for wildling establishment, in order to minimize the influence of temporal factors such as roadside management.…”

Trees outside forests in agricultural landscapes: spatial distribution and impact on habitat connectivity for forest organisms

“…All motorable roads and tracks were visited during autumn and winter [2009][2010]. This period of the year was preferred because sighting and identification of PPM host trees (evergreen coniferous species) is easier when deciduous trees have lost their leaves (Rousselet et al 2013). Every individual or small group of host trees (single trees, linear groups of trees, small woodlands) was observed by eye, and with binoculars when necessary, from the road and public land.…”