Possible Correlations of P.M 2.5 Levels and Observed Population of Birds in NYC​

Caroline Pollak, Terena Tsao, James Zou

We explored the possible correlation between PM 2.5 levels and Bird Populations in NYC using iNaturalist

Introduction
-Looked for relationship between PM2.5 levels and iNaturalist bird observations in New York
-Looked at birds because they’re easy to observe, and their population changes are indicative of the stability of the environment
-Used PM2.5 because they are particles that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and those can get into birds’ cardiovascular & respiratory systems and give them lung problems

Methods
-Used number of bird observations from iNaturalist and PM 2.5 levels to represent air quality from August through October in 2018-2021
-Chose August-October for the best data to avoid events that would severely inflate or deflate observation quantities
-Graphed number of bird observations on Y-axis (dependent variable) and PM 2.5 levels on X-axis (independent variable) to observe their relationship
-To account for effect of number of observers on observations, graphed number of observers vs bird observations to see if there’s any relationship
-Graphed number of observers vs PM 2.5 levels to see if air quality affected people going out and making observations

Results
-Found R values of .24 for years 2018-2021, indicating low correlation between PM 2.5 levels and birds observed
-Found R value of .88 for significant correlation between the amount of observers and number of bird observation
-Found R-value of .24 between the number of observers and PM 2.5, indicating low correlation

Conclusion
-Difficult to say there is a correlation between PM 2.5 and bird population using current analysis
-Our analysis suggests that the trends in the observed bird population likely due to the increase in the number of observers rather than as a result of PM 2.5 levels.

Future Work
-Using a data set from a source that focuses on wildlife conservation such as The North American Breeding Bird Survey or BBS would make it easier to see a possible correlation between PM 2.5 levels and bird population.

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