Chapter Eleven - The role of citizen science in biodiversity monitoring: when invasive species and insects meet

Abstract

The important contribution of citizen science to the monitoring of biodiversity, including invasive alien species (IAS), is increasingly recognized, with implications for the science per se and for IAS management. In this chapter, after a contextualization of citizen science and biodiversity monitoring, with a particular focus on IAS, examples of projects related to IAS and insects are presented. These include the use of citizen science to monitor IAS in general, invasive alien insects, invasive alien plants (IAPs), and alien insects used as biocontrol agents of IAP. Although citizen science is more prevalent in North America and Europe and somewhat biased toward some taxa, the number of initiatives to monitor biodiversity and, in particular, IAS has increased substantially in the last 2decades around the world. Citizen science data is increasingly used by scientists, although still a rather small proportion, being also important for IAS management and implementation of regulations.