Citizen science monitoring uncovers resilience of intertidal assemblages in a tropical urban environment

Abstract

Coastal intertidal sand and mudflats are home to a rich and uniquely evolved ecological community. With increasing knowledge of the importance of these ecosystems and the threats they are facing, efforts to conserve them have become a priority to many coastal managers. However, these can be constrained by knowledge gaps and resource limitations, and citizen science is an emerging strategy to complement traditional methods of data collection. Intertidal Watch is a citizen science program that was set up in Singapore in 2016, to better understand and monitor the biodiversity of Singapore’s urban tropical intertidal ecosystems. It also aims to increase public awareness of marine habitats by involving members of the community in citizen science. Through analyzing eight years of data collected by Intertidal Watch, this study documented rich ecological diversities in four intertidal sand and mudflats located in areas that had been reclaimed between the 1970s and 1980s, with evident community distinctions between a macroalgae-dominant site and the remaining seagrass-dominant sites. While there were fluctuations in biological populations over time, study sites were observed to largely remain resilient to changes in direct anthropogenic pressures. Our study highlights the power of citizen science in facilitating systematic conservation while bringing about positive community benefits.