Abstract
The brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys Stål (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae), is an invasive pest that has expanded its range outside of its original confinements in Eastern Asia, spreading through the United States, Canada and most of the European and Eurasian countries. The invasiveness of this agricultural and public nuisance pest is facilitated by the availability of an array of suitable hosts, an r-selected life history and the release from natural enemies in the invaded zones. Traditional monitoring methods are usually impeded by the lack of time and resources to sufficiently cover large geographical ranges. Therefore, the citizen science initiative “BugMap” was conceived to complement and assist researchers in breaking down the behavior of this invasive pest via a user-friendly, freely available mobile application. The collected data were employed to forecast its predicted distribution and to identify the areas at risk in Trentino, Northern Italy. Moreover, they permitted the uncovering of the seasonal invasion dynamics of this insect, besides providing insight into its phenological patterns, life cycle and potential management methods. Hence, the outcomes of this work emphasize the need to further integrate citizens in scientific endeavors to resolve ecological complications and reduce the gap between the public and science.
Highlights
As defined by the Oxford Dictionary [1], citizen science (CS) is ‘the collection and analysis of data relating to the natural world by members of the general public, typically as part of a collaborative project with professional scientists’
Volunteering citizens may have access to lands that may not be accessible to professional scientists, allowing them to discover invasive species not yet detected elsewhere [6]
A total of 306 valid brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) registrations were split between those done visually by citizens and those obtained by traditional monitoring activities such as installment of pheromone traps and tree-beating methods
Summary
As defined by the Oxford Dictionary [1], citizen science (CS) is ‘the collection and analysis of data relating to the natural world by members of the general public, typically as part of a collaborative project with professional scientists’. Oftentimes in ecological studies, there is a large amount of data to process or an extensive geographic range to cover. This poses a problem for a single researcher or even a small team of researchers [2]. Studies suggest that engaging citizen volunteers makes it more likely that programs collect data relevant to local conservation and management issues [3,4]. Such data may improve professional predictions on species’ future distributions, allowing the timely dissemination of these results to an educated public [5]. Volunteering citizens may have access to lands that may not be accessible to professional scientists, allowing them to discover invasive species not yet detected elsewhere [6]
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