How is the project performed?
Sentinel garden management
A sentinel garden is a set of trees planted overseas to detect non-native pests; for example, American trees planted in China. The concept is increasingly used for new pest detection by several international research and regulatory bodies.
The USDA Forest Service International Programs will be responsible for establishing and managing the gardens in China through agreements with the management entities of the gardens/land. UF will participate in an advisory capacity (remotely), but will not establish gardens under this project, or be involved in the negotiation of land rental.
Gardens will be established in:
- Yunnan Province, Mengla, near the XTBG garden.
XTBG is the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Climate: subtropical to tropical. Land near a protected area has been secured and will be funded by FS-IP; access and rent is facilitated through the coordinating agency (Minhou Pest Control).
Contact person: Yiyi Dong, XTBG Botanical Garden.
- Fujian Province, Shuyang Village.
Climate: subtropical.
Contact person: Yongying Ruan, PhD., Shenzhen Polytechnic, Shenzhen, Guangdong.
- Fujian Province, property of the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.
Climate: subtropical to temperate. The site is being negotiated by FS-IP.
Contact person: SongQing Wu, PhD, FAFU.
- Shandong Province, Taian.
Climate: temperate.
Contact person: Yingchao Ji, PhD, Shandong Agricultural University, Department of Forest Protection.
- Shenyang Institute of Technology, Liaoning Province.
Climate: temperate to cold.
Contact person: Haiying Yu, PhD, Shenyang Institute of Technology.
Data management workflow
The data from the sentinel gardens are collected through mobile devices. At first the trees are planted where they are associated with a barcode. This barcode is used to initialize the tree into the cloud database through a tree initialization form. Thereafter, trees can be surveyed repeatedly recording data to the associated tree barcode in the database. As data is recorded into the cloud database, statistical analysis may proceed on the live data. The statistical analytics alongside the raw data are accessible to all our collaborators and stakeholders in a secure way.
Tree initialization form
The tree initialization form captures data such as tree species, GPS coordinates, and an image of the tree. THis is captured alongside other metadata about the device that performed the initialization.
Tree Survey form
The tree survey form is the major form of recording data of trees and threats. It is designed to capture information on the health of each tree giving a global vitality score as well as a more detailed score on any affected tree parts. This is done alongside an image as visual proof of each score. Further, the survey form is designed to include any details of pest observations. This includes suspected classification options of the pest, an image of the pest and a unique observation ID used when the specimen is captured and stored.
Further details
For further details on how the Device Magic Application is used to capture and manage data visit our wiki website here.
Dr Jiri Hulcr
University of Florida
Forest Entomology Lab
Associate Professor / Principal Investigator