NIG Biodiversity

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NIG Biodiversity Summer 2024 opens from June 1 to August 31. Please take photos before the weather becomes too hot!

NIG Biodiversity Summer 2024

Status: Open for submissions. Ending on August 31, 2024.

Previous NIG Biodiversity Events (click to expand)

• NIG Biodiversity Spring 2024: Photos, Poster (38 photos by 10 submitters)
• NIG Biodiversity Autumn 2023: Photos, Poster (26 photos by 10 submitters)
• NIG Biodiversity Summer 2023: Photos, Poster (21 photos by 7 submitters)
• NIG Biodiversity Spring 2023: Photos, Poster, Handout (62 photos by 20 submitters)

How to participate:

• Photograph something alive you find within NIG premises.
• It can be anything, including animals, plants and fungi (except humans and lab animals).
• Eligible photos are those taken in Summer 2024 (June 1 - August 31).
• Submit your photos in this form.

Boring details (click to expand)

• Species name. This is optional. It's nice if you can identify what you found, so that others can learn from you. In such case you can write scientific name of the species in the form. If you are not sure, you can use a wider taxon, such as genus or family. Otherwise, you can just write "plant" or "animal".
• You can check whether the species you found already has a sequenced genome, using the GenomeSync database You can click "Statistics", then search for the species name. Even if the species was not sequenced yet, you can find the closest related species with sequenced genomes, by using the "Search entire taxonomy" option.
• Bonus points if you manage to find any rare or endangered species listed in the Japanese Red List.
• Location. If you can, try to record the location of your photo, for the "zoo map". Preferable format is decimal degrees, "lon,lat", e.g., "35.117620,138.938598". How to find the coordinates? When using a smartphone, often they are recorded automatically. Otherwise, you can open google maps, right-click at the point where you took the photo, and select the coordinates from the menu. (If you can't find the coordinates, you can also indicate the approximate area from this NIG map).
• Aspect ratio. Any ratio is OK. However, 1:1 is the preferable ratio, since it allows convenient gapless tiling for a poster.
• Replacing submisisons. You can submit any number of photos, but only the last 5 will be used. You can also inform us which photo you'd like to replace when submitting a photo beyond the first 5.

What happens next?

• All submitted photos will be displayed online.
• If there is enough material, we will select the better photos and make a poster.
• At the end of the year we may make a calendar for the next year, using submitted photos.
• All donated prizes are distributed among the participants via a lottery (organizers don't participate).

This is not a contest

Our focus here is more on the nature than on photography. Instead of a contest, we see it as a collaborative project on the boundary of science, art, education, and nature conservation. Without competition, anyone can participate, free from judgement or comparison.

Lottery

Same like before, there will be prizes, distributed via a random lottery among the entries. So, submitting 5 photos will increase your chance of winning something.

Please contact organizers with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Organizers:

• "Kirill Kryukov" <kirill-kryukov@nig.ac.jp>
• "Rumiko Suzuki" <rusuzuki@nig.ac.jp>
• "Kaisar Dauyey" <kdauyey@nig.ac.jp>