Practical Uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Wildlife Biologists

In just the last few years, since 2022, artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, and large language models have invaded our daily lives seemingly everywhere. This includes the scientific space, and they are very useful tools to improve research workflows. Comparing the abilities of chatbots now to just a few years ago, these tools have improved dramatically in their ability to undertake complex tasks and complete them with little human oversight. As of the middle of 2026, models like Claude Opus and OpenAI’s GPT have significantly evolved in features and capabilities. I have been intermittently using Claude for both work and personal matters over the past year, and have a reasonable understanding of where AI can be applied to the research process.

Below, I’ll highlight some of the ways I have been using Claude and how it has benefited my scientific work. This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but the applications I describe below cover some better use cases for me as a wildlife biologist.

Literature Reviews

Searching the internet for literature can be highly time-consuming and laborious, so this task is ripe for some automation. You can ask a chatbot to search for literature on a specific topic, and you will get a list of citations with links in either Markdown format or Excel, depending on your preference.

When instructing a chatbot on literature searches, specify the topic area, some literature databases to search, whether you want primary or gray literature, and the desired output format. If you search the same literature databases and like the same output formats every time, it’s useful to have the chatbot create a skill for you. This skill can be run every time you conduct a literature search, with you only needing to provide the topic area, while the skill gives detailed instructions on where and how to search.

After receiving the list of links and citations, you can easily open them in a web browser and add the papers and references to a literature database such as Zotero. While I could probably add some automation here, I prefer to keep this last step manual so I can ensure the citations are entered properly in Zotero with detailed metadata.

Brainstorming

Coming up with ideas for new projects, or expanding or enhancing an existing research project, is a great way to use AI to improve your research. If you've been working on a research project for a while and are looking for critiques, other directions to pursue, or ideas for papers or proposals, a chatbot can provide useful critical feedback.

I usually find that a chatbot will have a few good ideas and many that I don’t find as good. When brainstorming, it is important to use your expertise to determine whether the chatbot’s suggestion is a good idea and feasible. Brainstorming outputs can be saved in a Word document, a markdown file, or an Excel file for later reference, and you can ask a chatbot to automate this for you as well.

Data Analysis

I don't use AI much for data analysis because I work with proprietary data that I can't upload to a cloud-based model. However, if your data isn't proprietary, and you can upload a CSV file to an AI service, asking it to find connections and generate figures showing interesting relationships among the variables can be quite useful. You'll achieve the best results by explaining what the data contain and clarifying what the different variables represent before beginning any data analysis and interpretation. Domain knowledge is crucial here. Be sure to scrutinize outputs from any AI thoroughly to verify findings, interpretations, and conclusions for correctness and accuracy.

Grammar and Spelling

Excellent spelling and grammar are essential for effectively communicating your research. Grammar checkers powered by AI have been around for many years and are highly useful tools for improving writing. You can easily copy and paste text into a chatbot and ask it to edit your text for spelling and grammar. It will output a corrected version that you can paste back into your working document. Alternatively, you could utilize a grammar-specific AI tool such as Grammarly or LanguageTool. I prefer a dedicated tool because it lets you review recommendations and suggestions one at a time and decide whether to accept or reject each one.

Making project websites

Historically, creating a project website was done with a desktop application like Dreamweaver or an online page builder like Squarespace or Wix. However, an AI service can code your website for you using something like Claude Code or OpenAI’s Codex application.

To code a website with AI, provide instructions to Claude Code or Codex about the types of pages you want it to create, the general appearance, where you want your navigation links located, and general information for the content. Once a draft of the website is built, you can fine-tune the information manually by editing the HTML and CSS files it creates. Static HTML files can be hosted freely on services like GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages. This can be a very economical and easy way to host a project website for free, compared to using a content management system such as WordPress, which usually requires paid hosting.

Document Formatting

Formatting documents to look appealing and professional is a great application of AI for scientific research. Chatbots such as Claude can output formatted documents in Microsoft Word, serving as templates for the basic structure and appearance of a proposal, report, or publication.

To create a document template, specify as many details about the template as you can, including the formatting you desire, the journal you plan to submit to (if applicable), and the output format you prefer. Claude will output this as an artifact for download, and it is an easy way to create attractive-looking documents that can be reused in the future.

Dictation

Dictation is one of my most frequent uses of AI for scientific research, as dictation capabilities in the last one to two years have improved dramatically. Going well beyond what Apple’s Siri can provide, AI-based dictation can transcribe your voice much more accurately, automatically insert punctuation, and can clean up text and correct grammatical mistakes on the fly without changing the text’s meaning.

In fact, I've largely dictated this blog post that you're reading right now. I have used manual editing to clean things up and improve flow where it's warranted, but dictation wrote at least 70% of this post. I speak much faster than I can type, and it is a far more efficient way to create and draft documents and blog posts compared to physically typing every word. Currently, I’ve settled on Superwhisper as my application of choice for AI-based dictation, but many others exist at different price points.

Despite using AI to transform my voice into written words, the output is still my own and is not created in the same way as asking AI to generate text from scratch using a prompt. I see using AI dictation to generate text as similar to having secretaries type documents and reports for their bosses in the past. In this case, AI is providing typing assistance without a human involved.

What about writing

It may seem strange that I've waited to mention writing last, as it's one of the more common uses of generative AI that’s mentioned in the media and academic circles. However, my decision to mention writing last is intentional because I don’t use it. While I use AI to assist with writing through grammar checking, idea generation, or dictation, I always choose to write or speak my words and not have AI generate them for me.

This choice makes my content unique, with its own style and tone. And since I am putting my name next to what I am writing, I strongly believe it is important not to use AI to generate those words. Furthermore, I just enjoy writing. So, if I have AI write for me, I would lose much of the satisfaction and enjoyment I receive from creating original work with my own words.

Future Uses

So that's how I'm using AI in the middle of 2026 for scientific writing and research. Who knows what the next six months to a year will unveil and how researchers will be using AI a year from now.

Just this week, Claude Science was announced, which is a dedicated app for scientific research, data analysis, plotting, and literature reviews. I haven't tested it yet, but if I do, I'll be sure to report on what I find and the uses I've found it good for.

How are you using AI these days? I would be interested in hearing. Drop me a line and let me know how you're using AI to improve your scientific research process.