Azar Taheri Tayebi, a Master of Science candidate in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, will present their Masters thesis titled Use of citizen-reports on angler behavior on Wednesday, December 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM in-person on campus.
The examination committee includes Stephen Anco, Chair; Pouria Ramazi, Supervisor; Brett van Poorten, External Examiner (Simon Fraser University); and Yifeng Li and William Marshall, Supervisory Committee Members.
Students (both graduate and undergraduate) as well as other members of the Brock Community are invited to attend. If you are interested in the presentation, please contact Neil Marshall at [email protected] for the room location.
Abstract:
Traditional methods for collecting angler behavior data, such as creel and aerial surveys, are costly, while modern alternatives like online platforms and smartphone apps offer cost-effective solutions. Previous studies identified correlations between citizen-reported data and conventional surveys but did not investigate direct relationships between the two or the role of intermediate variables. Using Bayesian networks, we examined these relationships for two key metrics—daily catch rate and fishing pressure—based on data from Alberta and Ontario, Canada. Our analysis included meteorological factors and day types as intermediates, with Bayesian model averaging to assess variable connections. Results indicated moderate direct links between webpage views and aerial boat counts in Ontario and low-probability links between creel survey catch rates and citizen-reported data in Alberta, with indirect links mediated by temperature and solar radiation. We also compared expert-based, ChatGPT-driven, and data-driven Bayesian network models for predicting aerial survey boat counts. All models showed similar predictive accuracy and identified the number of webpage visits as a key predictor of boat activity. These findings highlight the comparable performance of expert, AI-assisted, and data-driven approaches when key variables are considered.