Tracking-unique-insect-species

🪲 Tracking Unique Insect Species — City of Melbourne

Research Question:
How do temperature, rainfall, and urban vegetation relate to where unique insect species are found across Melbourne — and which zones are most vulnerable to future climate change?

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🌍 Overview

After building a climate simulation to map heat and rainfall patterns in Melbourne, I wanted to see how these environmental changes affect biodiversity. That led to my next project — tracking unique insect species across the city using open data and geospatial clustering.

This project combines multiple public datasets (BioBlitz 2014, BioBlitz 2016, and GBIF records) to identify unique species sightings, visualize biodiversity hotspots, and explore seasonal trends.

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🧭 What I Did

• Collected and cleaned insect observation data (1,100+ records)
• Used DBSCAN clustering to identify biodiversity hotspots
• Mapped unique species sightings across Melbourne
• Visualized top families, genus, and seasonal trends
• Published interactive maps with Folium + GitHub Pages

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🔍 Key Insights

• Unique species cluster around green urban areas like Royal Park and Carlton Gardens.
• Seasonal peaks in Autumn and Spring align with known insect activity patterns.
• Hymenoptera (bees and ants) are among the most diverse orders.
• Data-driven biodiversity tracking can inform urban greening and conservation policies.

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🧠 Tools & Libraries

Python, Pandas, GeoPandas, Folium, Matplotlib, Scikit-learn, Streamlit

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🌐 Interactive Maps

• Species Distribution Map
• Insect Cluster Map

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🖼️ Visualizations

See the figures/ folder for charts showing seasonal and taxonomic trends.

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📂 Run Locally

pip install -r requirements.txt
streamlit run streamlit_app.py

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📜 License

MIT License (see LICENSE file)

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