Citizen Scientists Saving the Saguaro

The saguaro cactus (Canegiea gigantea) not only serves as food and shelter for numerous desert species, it plays an important role in the culture of indigenous peoples throughout the Sonoran Desert. Unfortunately, factors such as bacterial infection, climate change, invasive species, and pollution are causing saguaros to die at an unprecedented rate.

Help save the saguaro! Simply take a photo of a diseased saguaro and upload to this project. Undergraduate students and faculty within the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at ASU West Valley will use machine learning to help identify the underlying causes based on image analysis and statistical models to create species distribution models based on environmental factors.