Survey Target Counties for 2023

Last season (2022) saw progress based on published goals. See the 2022 journal articles March 04, March 12, July 13 and the January 04, 2023 journal for description and progress. We moved the needle considerably on observations, less so on species.

Goals are good. Looking at county data provides a view on where we need more attention (#observations, #species, comparison to historical, comparison to adjacent counties). The map of counties, below, highlights these target counties. The darker the color, the greater the need. Four counties are at the top of the needs list - Van Wert, Hardin, Noble, and Brown. Everything highlighted needs more species. Finding new species requires people looking.

If your county is blank, good job. Keep it up and maybe venture to one of the green counties.

An extra bit (the +'s) helps see relative need compared to 2022. Each + sign indicates the multiple of the 2022 observations we need in 2023 to keep relative pace to the overall survey. Back to our priority targets - Van Wert was the 2022 low for observations (52), and one of the 4 counties that had just a single observer. Van Wert is also on the low side in total observations (649). If we pick a target of getting to 1,000 observations, we need 7 times the 2022 observation count. 1,000 observations for every county may be ambitious, but again, goals are good.

More to come.

How are we?

A fairly common question is 'how are we doing?' There are different ways to consider. From the data, we can look at the combinations of county and species. To date, we have 6,671 combinations of the 88 Ohio counties and the possible 173 species. This number grows as County Records are established. We can compare this cumulative number to individual years, or perhaps more enlightening in a multi-year accumulation. A 5-year look smooths the curves. The chart shows the most recent 20 years. In beige is cumulative co|sp value - as theoretical maximum growing year by year (scale is on the left). The aqua is the 5 year value (left scale). The red line is the percent of the theoretical max accounted for in the 5 year running accumulation (scale is on the right). Note that prior to the start of the statewide survey, the percent observed was in the teens. We are now over 75% - meaning three quarters of the documented co|sp pairs are being recorded in the recent 5 year period. This helps answer the question - better, and pretty good.