Footnote
（Note）Koike, S., Fujita, G., & Higuchi, H., (2006). Climate change and the phenology of sympatric birds, insects, and plants in Japan. Global Environmental Research, 10, 167–174.
CIimate Change Investigation of Organisms Using “Biome” (winter version)
Biome Inc.
Industry: Information and communication
| Publication date | February 10, 2022 (Posted on May 25, 2022) |
|---|---|
| Sector | Natural Ecosystems |
Company Overview
With the vision of "making biodiversity conservation a normal link in the society," Biome, Inc. aims to create a "biodiversity market" by promoting the creation and use of biodiversity big data, and to realize a society where environmental conservation activities and economic rationality are in balance.
Climate Change Impacts
Since seasonal phenomena such as plant blooming and bird migration are closely related to changes in temperature during the four seasons, it is feared that global warming will have a significant impact on the lives of organisms（Note）.
Adaptation Initiatives
As a data service of organisms, we have developed an AI that determines the names of organisms from images, and operate a smartphone application called Biome where users can collect the images of organisms like a game in a form of a picture book. In 2020, we collaborated with the Ministry of the Environment to conduct a project using this application called "Climate Change Investigation of Organisms (winter version)”. This is a project to record organisms that may have changed its distribution (where they live) due to global warming, clarify the effects of global warming, and to raise public awareness to take actions against global warming.
Participants took on various tasks called Quests (25 in total, two types: Research Quests and Learning Quests) in the application (Fig. 1).
In the Research Quest, participants are required to find and post species that may be affected by climate change in order to complete their assignments, and in the Learning Quest, participants can learn what humans could do and emulate for global warming countermeasures by understanding the behavior of eco-friendly species.
Effects / Expected Benefits
The data of organisms obtained from the Research Quests will be analyzed together with the past data, and the results of the analysis will be shared in a form that is easy to understand for anyone, so that each individual can feel the effects of climate change happening around them, and to encourage them to take measures against global warming (Fig. 2).
We also hope that through the Learning Quests, people will actually discover some species, observe their wisdom of life, and use them in their daily lives.
We believe that collecting data of the distribution of species around the world and optimizing its use will enable us to address many of the issues that humanity has faced in the past, such as predicting changes in ecosystems due to global warming or understanding the extent of the invasion of alien species.
