This is the comprehensive intake mechanism for all information vital to PyroSense's platform. Its purpose is to gather real-time data, from multiple origins, ensuring the system has the input needed for accurate analysis and effective decision-making. 

PyroSense integrates an agnostic and highly compatible array of data:

1. Environmental IoT Sensors are strategically deployed, and continuously collect real-time CO2, temp. and humidity data. They are agnostic in type and protocol, compatible with MQTT, LoRa, Sigfox, and NBIoT, ensuring broad integration. For efficiency, they feature long-lasting batteries (up to 10 years), minimising maintenance.  

2. Fixed cameras and drones capture high-resolution images and live video. Integrated Vision AI processes this visual data in real-time to detect anomalies like smoke or fire. 

3. PyroSense gathers data from local weather stations and satellites. Combining granular local data with broad satellite coverage provides a comprehensive understanding of current weather.

4. GIS provides foundational spatial information, including maps of terrain, vegetation,  infrastructure, etc. 

5. Firemen Wearables monitor real-time biometrics. AI enhances data for risk pattern recognition, of fatigue or heat stress. Real-time alerts are sent to nearby teams or control centers, enabling proactive intervention.

Once plants have been collected, they are transferred to our conservation nursery for propagation, or to our seed lab for viability testing and storage. We are seeing increased effectiveness of these methods with freshly collected seeds and cuttings making it quickly to our staff. As many of these individual plants were not previously known, these actions boost the genetic diversity of ex-situ collections, providing a safe place in the face of environmental degradation.

The Mamba tool allows us to collect plant material via seeds or cuttings from endangered species that we have identified and mapped in the previous building block. This tool has an effective range well over 1000m, making even the most inaccessible areas available for management actions. 

Drone tools have been instrumental as a first step in the assessment of cliff floras. Using drones to get unique viewpoints of these environments, we can now map the distribution and abundance of critically endangered endemic cliff species and expedite their conservation. Field surveys have been conducted in Hawaii, the Republic of Palau, and Madeira (Portugal) with extremely positive results.

Amphibians are more threatened and are declining more rapidly than either birds or mammals. Amphibian populations are decreasing due to multiple factors, such as climate change, the chytrid fungus, and other anthropogenic factors such as species trafficking. However, the level of threat to amphibians is undoubtedly underestimated because 1294 species (22.5%) are too poorly known to assess, as compared with only 78 birds (0.8%) (Stuart et al., 2004). 

This knowledge deficit underscores the vital importance of educational tools like Ribbit in democratizing scientific research. By lowering barriers to ecological monitoring, apps like Ribbit transform passive observers into active conservation participants. Educational technologies enable citizen scientists to directly contribute to understanding and protecting vulnerable ecosystems, addressing critical research limitations through expanded data collection in under-researched regions.

These innovative platforms increase public awareness about biodiversity challenges while providing accessible pathways for scientific engagement. Unlike bird-focused apps with well-established research infrastructures, anuran conservation has lacked comprehensive citizen science platforms. Ribbit fills this critical gap by empowering individuals to become crucial contributors to amphibian research, turning the tide on data deficiency and supporting global conservation efforts through collaborative, technology-enabled environmental stewardship. It is the first application to include information about over 800 amphibian species, in four languages, including call type, photo, CITES information (whether species are trafficked or used for commercial purposes, addressing GBF targets 5 and 9), IUCN status (whether species are endangered, addressing GBF target 4) and general information on animal behavior and reproduction. 

Conserving ecosystems is key to curbing climate change, and maintaining ecosystem services (GBF target 11), which are closely linked to over 50% of the world’s GDP. Over 1 million species face the threat of extinction this century; however, selecting which areas to conserve is challenging with the existing data gap, which is biased towards observations in the global north. Increasing the amount of biodiversity data in the Global South is critical in the conservation of endangered species, found at high density in biodiversity hotspots in the Global South. Amphibians are ideal for acoustic identification due to their diverse vocalizations and are crucial ecosystem indicators (Estes-Zumpf et al., 2022), with over 40% of species at risk of extinction (Cañas et al., 2023). Increasing labeled data for the more than 7,000 amphibian species worldwide would enhance conservation efforts and reduce knowledge gaps in vulnerable ecosystems. By using a citizen science platform to aid in the mitigation of biodiversity loss, we help establish local environmental stewardship of these critical habitats (GBF Target 20).

Other citizen apps have shown the potential that citizen science has on mitigating biodiversity loss. eBird, the largest citizen science project related to biodiversity, has 100 million bird observations from users around the world. These observations help to "document the distribution, abundance, habitat use and bird trends through collected species list, within a simple scientific framework." (Sánchez-Clavijo et. al., 2024).  

iNaturalist, another citizen science app, that uses computer vision algorithms for species identification, has also proven successful in mitigating biodiversity loss. To date, the app has over 200,000,000 observations, with 6 million observations per month, globally. On iNaturalist, research-grade observations are shared with GBIF, which in turn uses that knowledge for policy decisions, research, and community building (GBIF, 2023). 

Currently, our app identifies 71 species of frogs and toads, worldwide. Though many of them are identified as least concern (LC) under the IUCN, we do have one IUCN endangered species, the Southern Bell Frog (Ranoidea raniformis). This lack of threatened species included, underscores the need for diverse practitioners to participate in bioacoustic ecological monitoring. Increasing data points on vulnerable species can serve to inform policy decisions using data-driven insights. Local communities and Indigenous Peoples will be a key asset in increasing the number of species included in the app, as their local knowledge allows us to track species in remote regions.