A comparative analysis of butterfly richness detection capacity of Pollard transects and general microhabitat surveys

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Divers have widely participated in citizen science (CS) projects and are one of the main groups of marine citizen scientists. However, there is little knowledge about profiles of, and incentives for potential divers to join CS projects. To date, most studies have focused on the SCUBA diving industry; nevertheless, there is a diversity of divers, not all using SCUBA, who engage in different activities during their dives. Differences in diver profiles could affect their willingness and ability to contribute to CS. In this study, we compare the diving profile, interests, preferences and motivations to participate in CS of five diver types (artisanal fishermen, recreational divers, instructors, scientific divers, and others). All divers have strong interests in participating in CS projects, with no major differences among diver types. In general, they are interested in a wide variety of themes related to CS but they prefer simple sampling protocols. Divers are motivated to participate in CS to learn about the sea and contribute to science. Some important differences among diver types were found, with artisanal fishermen having significantly more dive experience than other diver types, but less free time during their dives and limited access to some communication channels and technologies. These characteristics make them ideal partners to contribute their local ecological knowledge (LEK) to local CS projects. In contrast, recreational divers have the least experience but most free time during their dives and good access to cameras and communications channels, making them suitable partners for large-scale CS projects that do not require a high level of species knowledge. Instructors and scientific divers are well-placed to coordinate and supervise CS activities. The results confirm that divers are not all alike and specific considerations have to be taken into account to improve the contribution of each diver type to CS. The findings provide essential information for the design of different types of CS projects. By considering the relevant incentives and opportunities for diverse diver groups, marine CS projects will make efficient gains in volunteer recruitment, retention, and collaborative generation of knowledge about the marine environment.

Citizen science (CS) projects are part of a new era of data aggregation and harmonisation that facilitates interconnections between different datasets. Increasing the value and reuse of CS data has received growing attention with the appearance of the FAIR principles and systematic research data management (RDM) practises, which are often promoted by university libraries. However, RDM initiatives in CS appear diversified and if CS have special needs in terms of RDM is unclear. Therefore, the aim of this article is firstly to identify RDM challenges for CS projects and secondly, to discuss how university libraries may support any such challenges. A scoping review and a case study of Danish CS projects were performed to identify RDM challenges. 48 articles were selected for data extraction. Four academic project leaders were interviewed about RDM practices in their CS projects. Challenges and recommendations identified in the review and case study are often not specific for CS. However, finding CS data, engaging specific populations, attributing volunteers and handling sensitive data including health data are some of the challenges requiring special attention by CS project managers. Scientific requirements or national practices do not always encompass the nature of CS projects. Based on the identified challenges, it is recommended that university libraries focus their services on 1) identifying legal and ethical issues that the project managers should be aware of in their projects, 2) elaborating these issues in a Terms of Participation that also specifies data handling and sharing to the citizen scientist, and 3) motivating the project manager to good data handling practises. Adhering to the FAIR principles and good RDM practices in CS projects will continuously secure contextualisation and data quality. High data quality increases the value and reuse of the data and, therefore, the empowerment of the citizen scientists.

This is my project! The influence of involvement on psychological ownership and wildlife conservation

Understanding species richness patterns in time and space is critical for conservation management and ecological analyses. But estimates of species richness for a given place are often imprecise and incomplete, even when derived from expert-validated range maps. The current uptake of citizen science in natural resource management, conservation, and ecology offers great potential for extensive data to define species occurrence and richness patterns in the future. Yet, studies are needed to validate these richness patterns and ensure these data are fit-for-purpose. We compared data from a continental-scale citizen science project—FrogID—with expert-derived range maps to assess how well the former predicts species richness patterns in space. We then investigated how many citizen science submissions are necessary to fully sample the underlying frog community. There was a strong positive association between citizen science species richness estimates and estimates derived from an expert-derived map of frog distributions. An average of 153 citizen science submissions were necessary to fully-sample frog richness based on the expert-derived frog richness. Sampling effort in the citizen science project was negatively correlated with the remoteness of an area: less remote areas were more likely to have a greater number of citizen science submissions and be fully sampled. This suggests that scientists will likely need to rely on professionals for data collection in remote regions. We conclude that a citizen science project that has been running for ~ 18 months, can accurately predict frog species richness at a continental scale compared with an expert-derived map based on ~ 240 years of data accumulation. At large-scales, biodiversity data derived from citizen science projects will likely play a prominent role in the future of biodiversity and conservation.

Aim Tests for faunal relaxation in reserves, particularly for mammals, have relied on comparisons of current species richness with estimates of species richness derived from historical range maps. However, any range map reflects the extent of occurrence of species and not necessarily the area of occupancy. Thus, estimates of historical species richness might be prone to error introduced by ‘false positives’, that is, a species might be considered to have been present in locations where it actually was not. The effect of such ‘false positives’ could bias statistical tests of faunal relaxation to type I error, and result in estimates of the extent of faunal relaxation in reserves greater than was actually the case. We evaluated the potential for errors in historical range maps to generate inflated estimates of historical species richness of mammals at sites that are reserves today.Location Canadian national parks in the Canadian portion of the Alleghenian‐‐Illinoian mammal province in south‐eastern Canada (the maritime region and parts of southern Québec, Ontario and Manitoba).Methods The effect of varying levels of error in range maps on estimates of historical species richness was tested using geographical information systems (GIS)‐based statistical sampling of simulated historical ranges. Species’ areas of occupancy were simulated to be only 25%, 75% and 95% of published historical species ranges. For each reserve, estimates of historical species richness from these simulated species ranges were then compared with similar, previously published estimates of richness based on published historical species ranges.Results Previous estimates of historical species richness for reserves were inversely and linearly related to the degree of inaccuracy of species ranges. If species ranges were, on average, 5% smaller than the accepted ranges, then estimates of historical species richness agreed with previous estimates in c. 90% of cases. However, if historical ranges were, on average, 25% smaller than those used in previous analyses, then previous historical estimates of species richness may be overestimates in c. 40% of cases.Main conclusions Estimates of the extent of faunal relaxation in reserves that use historical range maps to quantify past species richness appear to be sensitive to even small errors in the degree to which range maps may overestimate ‘area of occupancy’.

In citizen science (CS) projects, citizens who are not professional scientists participate in scientific research. Besides serving research purposes, CS projects provide participants opportunities for inquiry‐based learning to promote their topic‐specific knowledge and scientific reasoning skills. Previous research suggests that participants need scientific reasoning skills to engage in scientific activities and to learn from inquiry in CS projects. Participants' scientific reasoning skills, therefore, might enhance the resulting topic‐specific knowledge at the end of a CS project. On the other hand, scientific reasoning skills themselves are a learning outcome of CS projects. Hence, they might play a double role in CS projects: as a learning outcome and as a prerequisite for acquiring knowledge. In the informal education context of CS, it has not yet been investigated whether scientific reasoning skills predict topic‐specific knowledge or vice versa. To address this question, the research presented here used a cross‐lagged panel design in two longitudinal field studies of a CS project on urban wildlife ecology (N = 144 participants). The results indicated that participants' scientific reasoning skills positively influenced their topic‐specific knowledge at the end of the project, but not vice versa. Extending previous research on individual learning outcomes of CS projects, the results showed that inquiry‐based learning in CS projects depends on certain prerequisites, such as participants' proficiency in scientific reasoning. We discuss the implications for future research on inquiry‐based learning in CS projects and for further training of CS participants in acquiring scientific reasoning skills.

Urban ecosystems provide diverse habitats for plants and animals. Policies can protect these ecosystems. To do this, policy frameworks need robust datasets to monitor and report on trends. Citizen science (CS) projects can make a valuable contribution by helping to build, refine, and supplement datasets. The overall aim of this study was to identify and characterize the contribution of CS projects to urban biodiversity monitoring and conservation frameworks in Germany. To gain an overview of the CS landscape in relation to urban biodiversity, we first examined German project platforms and were able to identify a geographical concentration in Berlin. We then focused on the contribution of CS to biodiversity monitoring in Berlin. We created an online questionnaire and conducted interviews with 22 Berlin-based CS project coordinators. In particular, we asked: How does their CS project contribute to the monitoring and conservation of urban biodiversity? What is the type of citizen engagement? What are the objectives of their CS projects, and what are their challenges? What are the outputs of their CS projects, and how do they publish their data? Finally, what is their knowledge of global, national, and local conservation frameworks? Our findings show that CS projects in Berlin are making a meaningful contribution to biodiversity monitoring. However, there is considerable potential for development, particularly in terms of awareness of policy frameworks and the sharing of data. We recommend increasing opportunities for exchange between policymakers and practitioners, and creating interfaces for data sharing to unlock the potential of CS projects for urban biodiversity conservation.

What is the countercultural potential of citizen science? As a participant in the wider citizen science movement, I can attest that contemporary citizen science initiatives rarely characterise themselves as countercultural. Rather, the goal of most citizen science projects is to be seen as producing orthodox scientific knowledge: the ethos is respectability rather than rebellion (NERC). I will suggest instead that there are resonances with the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s, most visibly through an emphasis on participatory experimentation and the principles of environmental sustainability and social justice. This will be illustrated by example, through two citizen science projects that have a commitment to combining social values with scientific practice. I will then describe the explicitly countercultural organisation, Science for the People, which arose from within the scientific community itself, out of opposition to the Vietnam War. Methodological and conceptual weaknesses in the authoritative model of science are explored, suggesting that there is an opportunity for citizen science to become anti-hegemonic by challenging the hegemony of science itself. This reformulation will be expressed through Deleuze and Guattari's notion of nomadic science, the means through which citizen science could become countercultural. Counterculture Before examining the countercultural potential of citizen science, I set out some of the grounds for identifying a counterculture drawing on the ideas of Theodore Roszak, who invented the term counterculture to describe the new forms of youth movements that emerged in the 1960s (Roszak). This was a perspective that allowed the carnivalesque procession of beatniks, hippies and the New Left to be seen as a single paradigm shift combining psychic and social revolution. But just as striking and more often forgotten is the way Roszak characterised the role of the counterculture as mobilising a vital critique of the scientific worldview (Roszak 273-274). The concept of counterculture has been taken up in diverse ways since its original formation. We can draw, for example, on Lawrence Grossberg's more contemporary analysis of counterculture (Grossberg) to clarify the main concepts and contrast them with a scientific approach. Firstly, a counterculture works on and through cultural formations. This positions it as something the scientific community would see as the other, as the opposite to the objective, repeatable and quantitative truth-seeking of science. Secondly, a counterculture is a diverse and hybrid space without a unitary identity. Again, scientists would often see science as a singular activity applied in modulated forms depending on the context, although in practice the different sciences can experience each other as different tribes. Thirdly, a counterculture is lived as a transformative experience where the participant is fundamentally changed at a psychic level through participation in unique events. Contrast this with the scientific idea of the separation of observer and observed, and the objective repeatability of the experiment irrespective of the experimenter. Fourthly, a counterculture is associated with a unique moment in time, a point of shift from the old to the new. For the counterculture of the 1960s this was the Age of Aquarius. In general, the aim of science and scientists is to contribute to a form of truth that is essentially timeless, in that a physical law is assumed to hold across all time (and space), although science also has moments of radical change with regard to scientific paradigms. Finally, and significantly for the conclusions of this paper, according to Roszak a counterculture stands against the mainstream. It offers a challenge not at the level of detail but, to the fundamental assumptions of the status quo. This is what “science” cannot do, in as much as science itself has become the mainstream. It was the character of science as the bedrock of all values that Roszak himself opposed and for which he named and welcomed the counterculture. Although critical of some of the more shallow aspects of its psychedelic experimentation or political militancy, he shared its criticism of the technocratic society (the technocracy) and the egocentric mode of consciousness. His hope was that the counterculture could help restore a visionary imagination along with a more human sense of community. What Is Citizen Science? In recent years the concept of citizen science has grown massively in popularity, but is still an open and unstable term with many variants. Current moves towards institutionalisation (Citizen Science Association) are attempting to marry growth and stabilisation, with the first Annual General Meeting of the European Citizen Science Association securing a tentative agreement on the common principles of citizen science (Haklay, "European"). Key papers and presentations in the mainstream of the movement emphasise that citizen science is not a new activity (Bonney et al.) with much being made of the fact that the National Audubon Society started its annual Christmas Bird Count in 1900 (National Audubon Society). However, this elides the key role of the Internet in the current surge, which takes two distinct forms; the organisation of distributed fieldwork, and the online crowdsourcing of data analysis. To scientists, the appeal of citizen science fieldwork follows from its distributed character; they can research patterns over large scales and across latitudes in ways that would be impossible for a researcher at a single study site (Toomey). Gathering together the volunteer, observations are made possible by an infrastructure of web tools. The role of the citizen in this is to be a careful observer; the eyes and ears of the scientist in cyberspace. In online crowdsourcing, the internet is used to present pattern recognition tasks; enrolling users in searching images for signs of new planets or the jets of material from black holes. The growth of science crowdsourcing is exponential; one of the largest sites facilitating this kind of citizen science now has well in excess of a million registered users (Zooniverse). Such is the force of the technological aura around crowdsourced science that mainstream publications often conflate it with the whole of citizen science (Parr). There are projects within citizen science which share core values with the counterculture as originally defined by Roszak, in particular open participation and social justice. These projects also show characteristics from Grossberg's analysis of counterculture; they are diverse and hybrid spaces, carry a sense of moving from an old era to a new one, and have cultural forms of their own. They open up the full range of the scientific method to participation, including problem definition, research design, analysis and action. Citizen science projects that aim for participation in all these areas include the Extreme Citizen Science research group (ExCiteS) at University College London (UCL), the associated social enterprise Mapping for Change (Mapping for Change), and the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab). ExCiteS sees its version of citizen science as "a situated, bottom-up practice" that "takes into account local needs, practices and culture". Public Lab, meanwhile, argue that many citizen science projects only offer non-scientists token forms of participation in scientific inquiry that rarely amount to more that data collection and record keeping. They counter this through an open process which tries to involve communities all the way from framing the research questions, to prototyping tools, to collating and interpreting the measurements. ExCiteS and Public Lab also share an implicit commitment to social justice through scientific activity. The Public Lab mission is to "put scientific inquiry at the heart of civic life" and the UCL research group strive for "new devices and knowledge creation processes that can transform the world". All of their work is framed by environmental sustainability and care for the planet, whether it's enabling environmental monitoring by indigenous communities in the Congo (ExCiteS) or developing do-it-yourself spectrometry kits to detect crude oil pollution (Public Lab, "Homebrew"). Having provided a case for elements of countercultural DNA being present in bottom-up and problem-driven citizen science, we can contrast this with Science for the People, a scientific movement that was born out of the counterculture. Countercultural Science from the 1970s: Science for the People Science for the People (SftP) was a scientific movement seeded by a rebellion of young physicists against the role of US science in the Vietnam War. Young members of the American Physical Society (APS) lobbied for it to take a position against the war but were heavily criticised by other members, whose written complaints in the communications of the APS focused on the importance of scientific neutrality and the need to maintain the association's purely scientific nature rather than allowing science to become contaminated by politics (Sarah Bridger, in Plenary 2, 0:46 to 1:04). The counter-narrative from the dissidents argued that science is not neutral, invoking the example of Nazi science as a justification for taking a stand. After losing the internal vote the young radicals left to form Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action (SESPA), which later became Science for the People (SftP). As well as opposition to the Vietnam War, SftP embodied from the start other key themes of the counterculture, such as civil rights and feminism. For example, the first edition of Science for the People magazine (appearing as Vol. 2, No. 2 of the SESPA Newsletter) included an article about leading Black Panther, Bobby Seale, alongside a piece entitled “Women Demand Equality in Science.” The final articles

Editorial| April 01 2021 Reflections of a Citizen Scientist Educator Brad Williamson Brad Williamson BRAD WILLIAMSON is a retired biology teacher in Kansas. He can be reached at bwilliam@ku.edu. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The American Biology Teacher (2021) 83 (4): 209. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2021.83.4.209 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Brad Williamson; Reflections of a Citizen Scientist Educator. The American Biology Teacher 1 April 2021; 83 (4): 209. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2021.83.4.209 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search In my work as a biology teacher, one of my goals has been to engage students as scientists. Certainly, laboratory activities in the classroom can initiate that process, but sharing projects and strategies that students can apply outside the classroom will make a more long-lasting impact. One such strategy that I have long found engaging is citizen science. My own contribution as a citizen scientist began with a mark and recapture project of butterflies called Monarch Watch, started with Dr. Chip Taylor at the University of Kansas (https://monarchwatch.org/). We began in the early 1990s, when the idea of citizen science was just getting started and before the term had been coined by Rick Bonney of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology. It was easy to see how working on a citizen science project might benefit students, giving them a chance to work on and contribute to an authentic scientific... You do not currently have access to this content.

Voluntary engagement is crucial for committed participation in Citizen Science (CS) projects. So far, the CS literature has argued that psychological ownership (i.e., subjective feelings of owning or possessing an object or entity) facilitates engagement in CS projects and is beneficial for several outcomes, such as attitudes toward CS. This paper argues that, as ownership is a self-relevant experience and facilitates effort and engagement, it should increase self-focused outcomes, such as the self-conscious emotion of pride. This is highly relevant for the CS context due to its voluntary character. In turn, pride may have uplifting effects and may trigger more engagement. Therefore, the research presented here investigated the interrelations between psychological ownership and pride in five two-month long, two-wave longitudinal field studies of a CS project on urban wildlife ecology using cross-lagged panel analyses of the data of 508 participants. It was hypothesized that ownership predicts pride over time and not vice versa, as ownership increases engagement, which in turn would trigger pride. It was found that, across all field studies combined, ownership had indeed a positive, time-lagged influence on pride. Thus, when CS participants voluntarily engage in a CS project that feels like their own, they also subsequently feel proud, which can motivate further voluntary CS engagement. The implications for the CS context are discussed.

A Place for Volunteers in Field Sciences

Citizen science is a relatively new phenomenon in the Czech Republic and currently a general overview of existing citizen science projects is not available. This presents the challenge to uncover the ‘hidden’ citizen science landscapes. The main objective of this paper is to explore the (public) representation of citizen science (CS) projects and to describe their heterogeneity. The study aims to answer the question of what type of projects in the Czech Republic meet the definition of citizen science. Based on a specific methodological data-base search approach, we compiled a set of CS projects (N = 73). During the classification process, two general citizen science categories were identified. The first group (N = 46) consists of “pure” CS projects with a prevalence towards the natural sciences, principally ornithology, and thus corresponding to general European trends. Citizens usually participate in such research in the form of data collection and basic interpretation, and a high level of cooperation between academia and NGOs was detected. The second group of “potential” CS projects (N = 27) entails various forms of public participation in general, frequently coordinated by NGOs. Based on these results, we discuss the position of citizen science in the Czech Republic, including socially-oriented citizen science. Further research is strongly encouraged to achieve a more in-depth insight into this social phenomenon.

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Expedition cruise vessels travelling to Antarctica offer several educational opportunities, with Citizen Science (CS) projects being the most prominent way to engage participants in polar science. FjordPhyto is a CS project where travellers onboard expedition cruise vessels gather data and samples for five months (from November to March) during the Antarctic summer season to help researchers understand changes in microalgae communities in response to melting glaciers. Since its inception in 2016, FjordPhyto has involved over 8,000 Antarctic travellers. To understand travellers’ perceptions engaging with the program during its first two years, 81 voluntary feedback surveys were collected from participants during 2017–2018 and 2018–2019 seasons. When analysing open-ended questions, three main themes associated with participant experience emerged: educational, enjoyable, and motivational. Results showed that ‘educational’ was the most frequent category in responses when describing how their experience was enriched by CS engagement. Participants also expressed an ‘appreciation for scientific learning’ or specifically, for ‘learning about ecosystems and climate change’. Furthermore, 97% of respondents stated that participating in CS enriched their travel experience. This preliminary exploratory study provides a first understanding of how CS projects like FjordPhyto can have a positive impact on the polar tourism experience. This study sets a precedent for being a first assessment of the impact CS can have on Antarctic travellers and encourages further quantitative and qualitative studies to evaluate the effectiveness of CS to educate and raise awareness of environmental issues.