UNISTELLAR EVSCOPE 2: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS, USER COMMUNITY, AND PROSPECTS FOR APPLICATION

A recurrent complaint of members who attend ESA Annual Meetings is that the large number of concurrent sessions make it impossible to attend all the ones of interest. Symposium Reports from the ESA Annual Meeting is one response to this dilemma. They provide, for those who could not attend, an overview of the symposium presentations and the resulting discussion, as well as a convenient means to identify the presenters. And attendees can review the session! The Editor hopes these Reports are useful, and encourages future Symposium organizers to write Reports for the Bulletin when the presentations are given. For detailed instruction for contributions see: 〈http://esapubs.org/esapubs/journals/Bulletin.htm#Typ〉. Until recently if one were to ask "who is a scientist?" a common response would be, someone who works at a university or a government agency or in a laboratory. In other words, many of us tend to think of scientists as professionals who have been academically trained and conduct research through the auspices of a research institution, agency, nonprofit organization, or academic institution. Historically, though, individuals from outside this circle of professionals have been instrumental in shaping and contributing to science. In fact, some of the most renowned scientists and ecologists could be considered citizen scientists (e.g., Charles Darwin, Harold Mayfield, Alexander Skutch). But the view that the public could actively contribute to science faded greatly over the course of the 20th century (particularly in the United States) to such an extent that we were left with the view that only someone who was professionally trained could be a scientist. Recently, however, we have witnessed an increase in the extent and acceptability of public participation and engagement in science. In particular, over the past decade we have seen a marked increase in such "citizen science" (Fig. 1). Although explanations of citizen science vary slightly, they converge on this definition: the involvement of citizens from the nonscientific community in academic research (Trumbull et al. 2000, Lee et al. 2006). Historical trend of citizen science articles. Data represent peer-reviewed articles as identified in ISI Web of Science using the search term "citizen science" from 1980 through 2008. The number of unique articles (n = 55) published is indicated by "articles," and the number of unique citations (n = 353) is indicated by "citations." Because citizen science has seen a dramatic increase in recent years, both in terms of the number of participants and its spread into new disciplines, a symposium was held at the 2008 Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting to address the role of such activity in ecology. Eleven speakers from around the world converged in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to share their work in "Citizen Science in Ecology: The Intersection of Research and Education," a symposium organized by Christopher Lepczyk, Owen Boyle, and Timothy Vargo. The goals of the symposium were to explore the following questions: (1) Is citizen science a new discipline, sub-discipline, or tool, relative to ecology? (2) Are data collected by citizen scientists valid, and if so, comparable to data collected by professional ecologists or their assistants? (3) Can citizen science be an effective tool to help bridge the gap between ecological research, communities, and education, both for the public and students? (4) Is citizen science the same as or different from ecological monitoring, or is one a subset of the other? (5) Are citizen scientists actively participating in the scientific process as ecologists, thus increasing their ecological literacy? To address these questions, speakers discussed citizen science both in general conceptual terms and in case-specific contexts from around the world. Rick Bonney of Cornell University opened the symposium with an overview of the history and evolution of citizen science in academic research. He explained that citizen science began as a series of monitoring projects designed to put the findings of hobbyists, such as bird watchers and star gazers, to meaningful scientific use. Following these early monitoring projects were ones designed with educational goals and even some set up as experiments. Eventually citizen science started to become an accepted technique for data collection in several scientific disciplines. Today, new citizen science efforts are involving participants in data analysis as well as data collection, and some are even starting to collect data from online images such as nestcams (readouts from recorders aimed at birds' nests). Following on the heels of the history of citizen science was a series of four case studies describing ecological research and monitoring projects that rely upon volunteers for their success. These case studies were arranged along a continuum from large-scale national projects with thousands of volunteers to regional and local projects. In addition, each case study represented varying degrees of interaction between researchers and volunteers. Leading off the case studies was David Ziolkowski of Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, who discussed how citizens drive the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Specifically, the BBS protocol conducts annual bird surveys along >4000 routes (Fig. 2) across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, using a highly skilled volunteer workforce. Part of the success of the BBS program has been its relatively straightforward field protocol and standardized design. Moreover, the BBS program has resulted in over 400 bird species being surveyed annually at a cost of less than $900 per species per year. Without citizen scientists, such accomplishments could not be achieved. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, a long-running insect monitoring project has been led by citizen scientists in conjunction with Rothamsted Research, the oldest agricultural research station in the world. Philip Gould highlighted how the Rothamsted Insect Survey has used light traps (Fig. 3) to capture insects across 460 sites in the UK for the past 50 years. This survey takes about five minutes each day to collect insects, which are then sent to Rothamsted Research for sorting and identification of the macro-moth fraction of the catch. To ensure a robust monitoring project, volunteers are reimbursed for any trap maintenance and provided with annual summaries of the moths collected from their trap. The success of the program has been built upon: (1) keeping the monitoring system simple; (2) ensuring that the volunteers are trained; (3) knowing when to discontinue sites; and (4) providing all volunteers with feedback on their work. The value of the insect survey was demonstrated in recent findings that two-thirds of common moth species across the UK have declined over the last 35 years, with 20% declining so fast that they should be considered threatened. As a result, several more species have now been added to Biodiversity Action Plans in the UK. Both the BBS and the Rothamsted Insect Survey demonstrate how large-scale monitoring can be used to denote changes in diversity and abundance over time. Furthermore, they both use protocols to filter data, thereby allowing for robust data set production. Locations of breeding bird survey routes. Figure credit: Curtis Flahter and Mike Knowles. Examples of (A) a light trap station in use, and (B) placement in a back yard. Photo credits: (A) Syd Wright MBE, and (B) Philip Gould. At the regional scale, Susanne Masi, manager of Chicago Botanic Garden's Plants of Concern Program, presented an overview and findings from the garden's rare plant monitoring project. The Chicago Botanic Garden established this program to monitor listed and rare plants in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Initiated in 2001, the program involves ~250 trained volunteers each year in collecting plant data (Fig. 4), and has now accumulated 8+ years of standardized data on 205 plant species at 245 sites. Aside from simply monitoring rare plants, the program has demonstrated several key findings related to using citizen scientists. First, a two-year volunteer data validation study comparing randomly selected volunteer data to professional data showed a high degree of correlation between the two groups. For example, there was >80% correspondence between the two groups in critical data fields such as population numbers and presence of threats. Second, the results of a Plants of Concern citizen science focus group showed that volunteers participated actively in, and understood critical elements of, the scientific process. Furthermore, participants unanimously experienced an increase of their involvement in stewardship and conservation activities as a result of the program, and reported sharing this scientific understanding and enhanced conservation commitment with the broader public. Volunteers (A) determining plot locations and conducting rare and listed plant inventories (B–D) as part of the Chicago Botanic Garden's Plants of Concern Program. Photo credits: (A) Peter Jacobs, (B) Robin Carlson, (C) Emily Kapler, and (D) Dani Drekich. Capping off the case studies was a presentation by Bill Mueller, who introduced the Milwaukee County Avian Migration Monitoring Partnership (MCAMMP), an avian monitoring study focused on migratory bird stopover ecology in the urban parks of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. To date the project has utilized the assistance of >140 citizen scientists over six migrations (three years) to help address the major goals of assessing habitat use and quality in both riparian and upland sites, and quantifying habitat use by migratory birds. Citizen science volunteers involvement includes training for transect counts, assistance with bird-banding operations, vegetation sampling and analysis, and recording of data. One major aim of training the citizen scientists is that they will be able to establish a long-term, urban avian monitoring project that can expand in the future. The second main portion of the symposium was devoted to a set of talks on the issues of the philosophy, policy, and technology of citizen science. Rebecca Jordan began this second portion with a discussion of a framework for promoting ecological literacy within the context of citizen science programs. She stressed that program design must balance both the scientific goals, which include ensuring data accuracy, and educational goals. Together these goals promote conceptual knowledge about the system of study, epistemological knowledge about science processes, and behavioral change with respect to environmental and civic action. While there is much evidence to support the promotion of conceptual knowledge, the latter two areas warrant further investigation. Integrating cognitive and environmental action theory will likely prove useful as practitioners seek to broaden program impact. David Bonter of Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology next discussed the issue of data validation processes for large citizen science databases, such as Project FeederWatch. Currently, Project FeederWatch receives >100,000 checklists from >14,000 citizen scientists annually, yielding over 5,000,000 bird observations of ~500 individual species. Thus, it is critical that such large volumes of data be inspected for any problems; this requirement has led to the development of a quality control and quality assurance protocol. This protocol uses a review system, whereby unusual observations or potential errors are flagged and sent to experts for follow-up with the citizen scientists. Unverified reports remain flagged and are excluded from data analyses and web-based data output. The system also allows researchers to identify volunteers who are in need of support and to focus educational efforts accordingly, ultimately improving data quality and integrity. Moving from data editing to data collecting, Louis Liebenberg, founder of CyberTracker Conservation, presented a talk on how technology can be used to get people back in touch with nature. Specifically, Louis has developed the free software program CyberTracker (available at 〈http://www.cybertracker.org/〉), which enables volunteers of all ages to collect biodiversity data on simple portable devices, such as smartphones and PDAs (Fig. 5). CyberTracker is already in active use for both citizen science projects and environmental education around the world. For instance, in the United States, NatureMapping, BioKIDS, and BioBlitz are using PDAs with CyberTracker software to enable volunteers of all ages to collect biodiversity data. Similarly, in South Africa, the NaturalWorld web site allows participants to share and view bird sightings, and in the Kalahari trackers from local communities are being employed to survey wildlife conservation corridors. Finally, the WhaleForce project involves yachtsmen around the world using CyberTracker to monitor whales. Ultimately, the software allows for easy data collection by citizen scientists and helps to promote people who engage the outdoors by collecting field data. Bushmen in Africa using CyberTracker. Photo credit: Louis Liebenberg. Michelle Prysby next discussed more efficient ways for interested citizens to find a project, and for projects to find interested volunteers. One partnership for scientists and educators interested in reaching trained citizen scientists consists of the Master Naturalist programs. These programs are volunteer training and service programs that involve the public in natural resource education, citizen science, and stewardship. Currently there are >25 Master Naturalist programs in the United States that represent a ready pool of volunteers who have been trained in core citizen science skills, such as recording field observations and using taxonomic keys to identify organisms. These volunteers are well connected to their local environments, and are part of an existing infrastructure that can support their citizen science volunteer activities. (For more information on natural resource education and stewardship programs such as Master Naturalists, Watershed Stewards, and Conservation Stewards, please see the Alliance of Natural Resource Outreach and Service Programs 〈http://www.anrosp.org〉). The final presentation of the morning was by Hague Vaughan, of Canada's Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN), who wove together the themes of the morning's talks. He described how citizen science fosters a desperately needed means to better link ecological monitoring to policy development and decision-making. His argument was that the emphasis on certainty in ecological monitoring leaves decision-makers lacking sentinel and feedback information where timeliness is a key factor. If focused on outcomes, complementary citizen science can be a means of enhancing effectiveness. To illustrate how to integrate citizen science into policy, Vaughan discussed a project that combined citizen data with targeted research and air quality monitoring stations in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada to identify pollution and lichen hot-spots that was used to deliver feedback on municipal and industrial choices (Fig. 6). A map of arboreal lichens in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, based upon citizen science data. Darker green locations represent greater numbers of lichens, and points represent sampling locations. The symposium concluded with a round table discussion of the morning's talks. Following the symposium, an additional workshop on citizen science was held over the weekend at the Urban Ecology Center of Milwaukee. At this workshop many of the symposium speakers gave an additional talk during the morning portion, with an afternoon of hands-on activities designed to train and educate citizen scientists. Overall, the symposium sought to address five major goals related to citizen science. In reflecting upon these five goals it is clear that there was progress made on all, but not necessarily agreement. For instance, the general view was that citizen science has new elements to offer ecology, but there was no definitive agreement among the speakers that it was a new discipline or subdiscipline. Whether or not this will change remains to be seen; citizen science is still very much an area of new ideas and growth. On the other hand, several speakers presented data from their research illustrating that the quality of data collected by citizen scientists is of the same or better quality than that collected by professional ecologists. Such quality is enhanced further with the aid of both software (e.g., Project FeederWatch and CyberTracker) and expert assistance. Similarly, there was strong evidence that citizen science can be an effective tool to help bridge the gap between ecologists and the public. In terms of the overlap with monitoring, it is clear that they share a number of similarities and will likely continue to do so in the future. However, many of the citizen science projects were much broader than monitoring alone, because they engaged the public in the scientific process or served to enhance ecological literacy. Based upon the talks and concluding discussions, citizen science is an increasing part of ecology, and has great promise for contributing knowledge, improving ecological literacy, training scientists to work with the public, and providing information for policy-makers.

Introduction: Education system is making its debut in the smart and intelligent system at a slow pace but the change seen in the system is an amazing shift. The learning system has developed and contributed to the disciples in many ways in Education using interactive tools and application of artificial intelligence i.e. Education 5.0. Integration of various technologies makes the Education 5.0 as the smart and intelligent education system which makes a more complex environment with unique security challenges. In this paper we attempt to analyse computer science, security and education to make a Secure Smart Education System (SSES) by using ensemble learning to address the security challenges. This paper addresses these challenges, associated risk and provides a basic analysis for cyber security.. Objectives: The objective of this work is to explore the transformative impact of Education 5.0, which represents a significant evolution in the educational landscape through the integration of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and interactive tools. As the education system gradually embraces these smart and intelligent frameworks, it encounters a myriad of unique security challenges that arise from the complexity of this new environment. This paper aims to analyse the intersection of computer science, security, and education to develop a Secure Smart Education System (SSES) that effectively addresses these security challenges. Methods: This paper aims to analyse the intersection of computer science, security, and education to develop a Secure Smart Education System (SSES) that effectively addresses these security challenges. By employing ensemble learning techniques, we seek to enhance the robustness of security measures within educational platforms, thereby mitigating associated risks and vulnerabilities. Furthermore, this work provides a foundational analysis of cybersecurity issues pertinent to the educational sector, offering insights into how to create a safer and more secure learning environment in the context of rapidly evolving technological advancements. Results: The proposed model is named the Secure Smart Education System (SSEduS), as it has shown promising results while using publicly available network data. This model consists of a stacked ensemble that uses three classifiers divided into two categories: traditional models and ensemble models for detecting malicious activity. Unlike other conventional models, our model is a perfect combination of base learners and strong learners. The proposed model has demonstrated good results, achieving nearly perfect accuracy of 99.99% and a false positive rate of 0.46%. The results have shown significant improvement over the existing models studied. The accuracy achieved is the best result so far using the stacked ensemble. Conclusions: Our goal was to contribute to the ongoing discourse on the integration of security in smart education systems, ensuring that the benefits of Education 5.0 can be realized without compromising the safety and integrity of educational data and process.

Citizen science and conservation: Recommendations for a rapidly moving field

We present a study of social participation in Citizen Science. The aim is to identify the problems and opportunities for attracting young people to Citizen Science using an example of genetic research projects held in 2020–2023 in Russia. The paper briefly reviews the development of the understanding and use of Citizen Science, as well as shows its application in genetic research. Empirical data were obtained in the course of qualitative and mass quantitative sociological studies. Scientific, organizational, and social contexts of wide involvement of people in scientific activity are shown. The narratives and motives of interested parties are analyzed. The study revealed limited development of Citizen Science practices in Russia, as well as the underdevelopment of the infrastructure for expanding social participation in scientific research. Moreover, professional scientists in natural sciences show contradictory attitudes and doubts about the involving volunteers in scientific research. We conclude that critical and doubtful attitudes towards Citizen Science decrease as practical experience of interaction is gained. According to data from mass sociological studies, there are significant differences in young people’s assessments of scientific activity and participation in volunteer practices, especially at school age. The necessity to draw public attention to the potential of using Citizen Science in a broad sense has been demonstrated.

The science of citizen science: Exploring barriers to use as a primary research tool

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for using citizen science – defined as a data collection method through which non-professionals engage in contributing to authentic scientific inquiry – within the expedition cruise industry to contribute significantly to the collection of environmental data from hard-to-access Arctic areas. Design/methodology/approach The authors review trends in Arctic expedition cruise tourism and current needs in Arctic research and monitoring, and clarify where the expedition cruise tourism industry could have the most impact by providing data to the scientific community. The authors also compare the regulatory context in the Antarctic to that in the Arctic and discuss how these differences could affect the widespread use of citizen science. At last, the authors describe some general principles for designing citizen science programs to be successful on board, and highlight several existing programs that are being recognized for their contributions to a greater scientific understanding of the Arctic. Findings The authors find that citizen science data from the expedition cruise industry are underutilized as a tool for monitoring Arctic change. Numerous examples illustrate how citizen science programs on-board expedition ships can successfully collect robust scientific data and contribute to enhancing the knowledge and stewardship capacity of cruise passengers. Inclusion of citizen science data from the expedition cruise industry should be considered a critical part of international Arctic observing networks and systems. Social implications Active participation in Arctic citizen science by tourists on expedition cruise ships has many potential benefits beyond the collection of high quality data, from increasing passengers’ knowledge and understanding of the Arctic while on board, to affecting their attitudes and behaviors after they return home. Originality/value The potential for tourism to contribute to Arctic observing systems has been discussed previously in the scientific literature; the authors narrow the focus to citizen science programs in the expedition cruise industry, and provide concrete examples, in the hope that this will streamline acceptance and implementation of these ideas by researchers and tourism practitioners.

Most citizen science research inherently separates the observer (citizen science participant) from the observation (e.g. data point), placing artificial boundaries around what matters and how it comes to matter. We apply three elements of the philosophical framework of agential realism to reveal a more complex picture of how data arise within citizen science programmes, and its meaning to both the practice of science and the citizen science participant: ‘intra‐action’ (all entities have agency and are entangled with one another); ‘material becoming’ (what comes to matter); and ‘responsibility’ (accountability for what comes to matter and what is excluded from mattering). We draw on a case study of FrogID—an Australia‐wide citizen science program focused on calling frogs, with over 42,000 participants and over 1 million frog records. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with 30 FrogID users, completing two rounds of thematic and relational coding. Our findings reveal that as a consequence of their recording behaviours, FrogID participants become increasingly entangled with the nocturnal environment, with sound and with their own self. Expanding and reciprocal relationships and experiences shape the nature and frequency of their recordings. Second, meaning influences what comes to matter (i.e. what is recorded and submitted) for FrogID participants. We reveal meaning related to feedback (recognition and thus reciprocity), others (social networks and participation with family and friends) and the self (physical and mental well‐being and identity formation/becoming). These different forms of meaning influenced engagement with app use. Third, participants communicated responsibilities related to their involvement in citizen science, including responsibilities to create knowledge (e.g. longitudinal data collection), to conserve (e.g. actively conserving frog, formally committing areas to conservation) and to educate self and others (e.g. skills and competencies required for environmental action). Synthesis and applications: By recognizing a more comprehensive set of intra‐actions, beyond the observer and the observation, agential realism can reveal when, why and how citizen science observations are made; what observations come to matter and why; and how people can create a more just world. Agential realism can shape how citizen science participation, retention and biodiversity data generation are founded. We propose three opportunities for citizen science programs based on these findings. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Objective. In 2022, the Civis platform of the IBICT (Brazilian Institute for Information in Science and Technology) was created. It aimed to provide infrastructure and content for understanding and dissemintating the use of Citizen Science in Brazil. It also aimed to provide the basis for developing initiatives and methodologies in this area. This study analyses the implementation of citizen science in the context of open science. The study seeks to understand how the platform promotes the participation of society in various stages of the scientific process and not only in data collection.
 Research/Methodology/Approach. The citizen science projects available on Civis: Citizen Science Platform will be surveyed and analyzed. The data collected in October 2022 are subdivided into five main categories: (1) area, (2) data collection, (3) social participation, (4) open data, and (5) scope. These categories are relevant to understand the current stage of citizen science projects in the Brazilian scenario, including the most essential knowledge areas, data collection procedures, levels of openness and access to scientific data, and the territorial coverage of these projects.
 Results/Discussion. 24 citizen science projects were registered on the Civis platform, most of which are contributive. The primary area of emphasis is Biological Sciences and they use technological infrastructure for mobile data collection.
 Conclusions. Civis is a multidisciplinary platform to promote citizen science in Brazil. The registration of projects is voluntary, which may explain the low adhesion to the platform, besides its recent launch.
 Originality/Value. Civis is an essential first-approach tool that enables the understanding of citizen science in Brazil.

Citizen science in hydrological monitoring and ecosystem services management: State of the art and future prospects.

From 19 to 21 September 2023, the city of Silvi Marina, in the province of Teramo, hosted GeoVet2023, continuing a tradition that, since 2001, has positioned the conference as a global reference for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of geospatial science and veterinary medicine. With the theme "Expanding Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Geospatial Research for the One Health Era", GeoVet2023 gathered experts from diverse fields to address critical challenges, including the impacts of climate change, human activities, and interactions between domestic and wild animals on veterinary and public health, as well as food safety. GeoVet2023 continued the trajectory set by GeoVet2019, which explored how emerging technologies and data-driven approaches in the Big Data era redefined spatial analysis in animal and public health. The 2023 edition expanded these discussions by incorporating practical applications of real-time data science, artificial intelligence, and decision-making tools, along with social network data, citizen science, and advanced spatio-temporal methods to address challenges posed by climate change and the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. Another key aspect of the conference was the dialogue between scientists and international organizations, pointing out the crucial role of effective communication in bridging research and policymaking. Indeed, in his opening keynote, Marius Gilbert shared lessons from managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium, highlighted the challenges related to public communication and underscoring the need for health science literacy, trust, and structured scientific debate. The scientific program of GeoVet2023 included five keynotes, eight senior presentations, 43 engaging talks, and 50 informative posters, representing 106 research projects in total. The relationships established and the knowledge shared during this conference not only reflect its innovation but also provide a roadmap to guide the progress of interdisciplinary geospatial research and One Health strategies in the years to come. This special issue of Veterinaria Italiana captures the innovation, integration, and practical applications that characterized the GeoVet2023 conference discussions. Presenting 12 selected studies, it showcases the latest development in spatial epidemiology and geospatial tools, providing solutions for pressing issues such as disease surveillance, antimicrobial resistance, and the impacts of environmental changes on health systems. These studies provide concrete examples of how geospatial research improves veterinary and public health within the One Health framework.

This thesis examines the intersection of citizen science, serious games, and artificial intelligence, focusing on the methodological challenges that arise when participatory projects generate large and complex datasets. Citizen science has broadened public involvement in research, but recurring issues such as missing data, inconsistencies, observer variation, and limited reproducibility continue to affect data quality. Serious games also offer opportunities for engagement and learning, yet their behavioural data is often underused due to analytical constraints. By applying data science, machine learning, and explainable AI, this thesis shows how these techniques can improve the reliability and interpretation of citizen science data.<br/><br/>The research was carried out in collaboration with JGM Serious eXperiences, a serious-gaming organisation in Leeuwarden that develops escape-room-based games for professional training. These settings provided a controlled environment for observing real-time team behaviour under pressure. The collaboration reflects a form of participatory citizen science: JGM provided data and practical questions, while academic analysis refined behavioural indicators and strengthened scientific validity.<br/><br/>The thesis consists of three interconnected studies. The first, a systematic literature review, synthesises 90 publications on the use of AI in citizen science and highlights challenges such as data imbalance, bias, and limited transparency. The second study develops a data science framework to clean and validate JGM’s behavioural dataset, addressing missing and inconsistent entries. The third study applies machine learning and explainable AI to identify behavioural predictors of team success.<br/><br/>Together, these studies demonstrate how data science can enhance methodological rigour in citizen science by improving data preprocessing, analysis, and interpretation. The findings offer practical guidance on integrating data science and AI techniques into participatory projects to support more reliable, transparent, and impactful research.

Citizen science (CS) is the most effective tool for overcoming the limitations of government and/or professional data collection. To compensate for quantitative limitations of the 'Winter Waterbird Census of Korea', we conducted a total of four bird monitoring via CS from 2021 to 2022. To use CS data alongside national data, we studied CS data quality and improvement utilizing (1) digit-based analysis using Benford’s law and (2) comparative analysis with national data. In addition, we performed bird community analysis using CS-specific data, demonstrating the necessity of CS. Neither CS nor the national data adhered to Benford's law. Alpha diversity (number of species and Shannon index) was lower, and total beta diversity was higher for the CS data than national data. Regarding the observed bird community, the number of species per family was similar; however, the number of individuals per family/species differed. We also identified the necessity of CS by confirming the possibility of predicting bird communities using CS-specific data. CS was influenced by various factors, including the perceptions of the survey participants and their level of experience. Therefore, conducting CS after systematic training can facilitate the collection of higher-quality data

Recent advances in digital technology, coupled with rapidly increasing interest in the creation and dissemination of digitized specimen data for use in broad-scale research by botanists and other organismal scientists, have encouraged the development of a variety of new research opportunities in the botanical sciences (e.g., Page et al., 2015; Soltis, 2017). It is now increasingly possible to collect, use, re-use, and share data more easily and effectively. With the advent of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections initiative and the establishment of iDigBio (Integrated Digitized Biocollections; www.idigbio.org) as the national resource for specimen digitization and digital data mobilization, researchers now have access to ever larger and varied digital data sets for visualization, analysis, and modeling and have new opportunities for adopting "big data" strategies for facilitating discovery. The iDigBio portal alone now includes nearly 20 million botanical specimen records, a figure that is growing rapidly as new institutions share their data. In this special issue of Applications in Plant Sciences, which is based on symposium presentations at Botany 2017 (the annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America and affiliated societies) and the XIX International Botanical Congress, authors present a broad array of examples of the latest developments in botanical biodiversity research using digitized specimen data, including in the fields of genomics, conservation assessment, ecology, phenology, and taxonomic revisions. The papers present current trends in the proactive digitization of specimen data that occurs during the collecting and vouchering of specimens and field data; the tools, skills, and strategies needed for linking and visualizing botanical data; and innovative methods for digital discovery. This collection also highlights how digital data are being used in research that expands our understanding and conservation of plant diversity and the environment. Although the source data for the papers in this collection are herbarium specimens, the topics extend well beyond systematics. Broadly integrative plant biologists will be interested in new approaches to using and re-using specimen data—whether locality information for modeling or images for analysis of morphology and/or functional traits. More importantly, digitized herbarium data become even more valuable when linked to other data sources, such as environmental or genetic data. In fact, emerging cyberinfrastructure and new data sources provide unparalleled opportunities for mobilizing and integrating massive amounts of information from organismal biology, ecology, genetics, climatology, and other disciplines. Particularly powerful is the integration of phylogenies with specimen data, enabling analyses of phylogenetic diversity in a spatio-temporal context, the evolution of niche space, and more. Such data-driven synthetic analyses may generate unexpected patterns, yielding new hypotheses for further study. However, a major challenge is the heterogeneous nature of complex data, and new methods are needed to link these divergent data types. Ongoing efforts to link and analyze diverse data are yielding new perspectives on a range of ecological problems. Integration of plant phylogeny, distributions, traits, and ultimately genetics is permitting new perspectives on landscape-level patterns of biodiversity, with implications for conservation and management of natural resources. Although many specific hypotheses may be addressed through integrated analyses of biodiversity and environmental data, perhaps the greatest value of such data-enabled science will lie in the unanticipated patterns that emerge. The papers in this collection capture some of the diversity of the emerging themes that can be addressed via use of digitized herbarium specimens. The authors address the broad range of research that can be facilitated by analysis of digitized herbarium specimens; limitations and bias of digitized specimens for certain avenues of research; future digitization and training needs; the role of globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) in integrative research involving herbarium specimens and other sources of data; digitization workflows that incorporate field, museum, and data mobilization components; the use of deep learning in specimen identification from images; the development of a standardized workflow for scoring plant phenology from herbarium specimens; the use of aggregated digitized data for fungi in generating a comprehensive mycological flora (or mycoflora) for North America; the role of digital images in education and public outreach; the effective contributions of citizen scientists of all ages to hypothesis-driven research; and the need for effective, comprehensive, and accurate tracking of data use for understanding the impact of digitized collections. Noting the centuries of exploration that have yielded the global span of the world's herbaria, James et al. (2018) provide an overview of how open, digitized, aggregated botanical data can be used to document global change, predict future impacts, and drive biological and environmental remediation. Herbarium data—from the information in labels to data that can be extracted from images—have an increasing role to play in analyses of temporal and spatial change in community composition and structure. Moreover, patterns identified via analyses of herbarium specimens can form the foundation for conservation, rehabilitation, and restoration efforts of not only single species but entire communities. However, collections data—whether plants, animals, or fungi—may not always be research-ready. James et al. address the fitness for use of herbarium data in basic and applied research, noting that taxonomic, spatial, and temporal limitations may hamper the usefulness of herbarium data for specific questions. Fortunately, research efforts addressing issues of data quality, uncertainty, and bias are providing guidance for assessing limitations for specific uses and for ameliorating the effects. Given the enormous potential of herbarium data for research in systematics, ecology, conservation, and global change, the authors cite the need for greater global advocacy for collections, from curation of physical specimens to digitization to online publishing of digitized data. Future work to enhance digital herbarium collections through digitization of other resources, such as field notes, libraries, etc., and to develop tools for discovery, visualization, analysis, and communication is needed. Key to innovative and effective use of digitized herbarium data will be skills training for the next generation of botanical researchers. The assignment of GUIDs to facilitate the tracking, linking, and discovery of biodiversity specimens across the internet has been a hotly debated subject. Although the majority of biodiversity informaticians agree that the use of unique identifiers is essential, controversy remains about which types of identifiers are best, the most appropriate Darwin Core field in which they should be published, strategies for resolving identifiers to physical specimens across the internet, and effective implementation strategies for the wide variation in biodiversity collections storage, management, and digitization. Nelson et al. (2018) narrow the scope of this debate to the implementation of GUID assignments to the digitization and mobilization of herbarium specimen data. They review the types of GUIDs in current use and strongly recommend that GUID values be associated with all specimens and included in all digital records of those specimens. They address the lack of a universal, community-supported resolver for GUID values and offer guidelines and recommended practices for minting, managing, and sharing GUIDs for herbarium specimens. Contreras (2018) brings a paleobotanical perspective to this special edition, highlighting the important role researchers can play in incorporating collection, digitization, analysis, curation, and data mobilization into an integrated research and digitization pipeline. Although she emphasizes that the workflow and pipeline presented may be especially useful in smaller institutions with limited staff or when images and other digital data are integral to the research project, the protocols she outlines may have broad applicability to researchers and other staff working in larger collections, as well as to those in non-paleontological collections, including herbaria. Her workflow incorporates three components—field, museum, and data mobilization—that are often temporally and spatially separated in current practice. As a result, the paper brings a clear museum perspective to the research process, with the museum phase serving as a transition during which specimens are organized, data are bridged from field to museum, and the preparation of a museum workspace designed to facilitate these steps. Contreras' paper offers an important viewpoint on the ways in which research, collections management, digitization, and curation can be linked to support the management of specimens in the museum. Given the rapid increase in the availability of high-quality specimen and field images of plants, the capacity to utilize computer vision and image mining techniques to make automated taxonomic identifications, extract traits, and produce phenological scorings provides the field of convolutional neural networks and deep learning tremendous opportunities for applications in botany. Botella et al. (2018) review previous work with these tools, pointing out that recent progress with deep learning techniques has shown impressive recognition performance and that, when combined with mobile applications such as Pl@ntNet (https://identify.plantnet-project.org/), these techniques may contribute significantly to species distribution modeling (SDM), biodiversity monitoring, and the inclusion of citizen science observations within each of these domains. Their paper explores the use of automated identification in the absence of human validation for SDM, particularly the impact of the degree of uncertainty when training the MAXENT niche modeling approach. They evaluated five invasive species against a training set of 332,000 human-validated plant images belonging to about 11,000 species. Their results suggest significant research challenges for using these types of data in SDMs, as well as for developing models for integrating citizen science observations into conservation management. Automated image mining is of continuing importance to botany and is a worthwhile avenue for further research. Plant phenology (seasonal events such as leaf out, flowering, and fruiting) has complex effects on multiple levels of biological organization from individuals to ecosystems, and Yost et al. (2018) discuss the potential of herbarium specimens for addressing basic and applied research on plant phenology. Phenological shifts are key indicators of global change, and temporal mismatches in phenology may have important, even catastrophic effects on natural communities and agricultural systems. For example, such mismatches between plants and pollinators can quickly cause local extinctions, drive rapid evolutionary shifts, and cause billions of dollars of agricultural losses. Herbarium specimens are an excellent source of data for documenting changes in plant phenology (see review by Willis et al., 2017), but despite millions of specimens that could contribute to an understanding of historical phenology, inter-year variation in phenology, and true shifts in phenology, the use of these data suffers from a lack of standardized scoring methods and definitions of phenological states. To date, phenological information has been captured in a herbarium specimen record in multiple ways, for example, in Darwin Core fields from 'reproductiveCondition' to 'occurrenceRemarks,' 'organismRemarks,' 'dynamicProperties,' or 'fieldNotes.' The lack of standardization in scoring and recording phenological data has limited large-scale use of specimens for phenological study. Yost et al. propose a standardized methodology for scoring phenological characters from herbarium specimens that can be applied by researchers across herbaria, research groups, and means of data collection, including via citizen science, satellite imagery, and stationary cameras. Herbaria for centuries have typically housed collections of not only plants, but also fungi. Despite current knowledge that fungi represent the sister group to animals and are not closely related to plants, many of the curatorial practices for fungi are similar to those for plants, and this similarity extends to digitization as well. Thiers and Halling (2018) describe the Macrofungi Collections Consortium (MaCC) and the development of MyCoPortal (http://mycoportal.org/portal/index.php) for serving digitized specimen information. MaCC digitized data from ~1.25 million specimens; including data contributed by the Microfungi Collections Consortium (http://www.microfungi.org/), the MyCoPortal database currently houses nearly 3.5 million specimens, as well as descriptions, illustrations, and observational records. The driving force behind development of MyCoPortal was production of a database to provide baseline data on the extent and distribution of macrofungal diversity, and the aggregated data have certainly accomplished this goal. Moreover, MyCoPortal has attracted the amateur mycological community from the United States, which comprises 80 clubs and 10,200 members. Together, professional and amateur mycologists, with the foundational data from MyCoPortal, are poised to produce a comprehensive mycoflora of North America, complete with DNA sequences, phenotypic descriptions, and images. Data from MyCoPortal have been used in taxonomic treatments, large-scale phylogenetic analyses, ecological studies, and analyses of native versus invasive species and set the stage for a broad range of uses into the future. Herbaria are reservoirs of both well-documented specimens and undescribed diversity. New species are described each year from specimens that have been housed in collections for decades, if not centuries. However, the pace of such discovery is slow, especially for non-angiosperms, and accelerating the process of discovery is expensive. von Konrat et al. (2018) explore the role of digitization in increasing accessibility to specimens, particularly in combination with citizen science efforts and online technology for uses beyond label transcription. The authors connect natural history collections to education and outreach through a citizen science tool based on the online Zooniverse platform. Their project, MicroPlants (http://microplants.fieldmuseum.org/), uses images of the liverwort genus Frullania and both a web-based platform and an interactive touchscreen version to capture large data sets for taxonomic analysis, engage a diverse participant group in research, and expose the public to novel analytical approaches and the scientific process. MicroPlants has been used in informal science settings at the Field Museum and in formal educational venues in middle schools, high schools, and colleges and universities. The project has provided valuable data on both morphological variation in Frullania and the educational effectiveness of this citizen science platform. Noteworthy is the fact that preliminary analyses indicate that data provided by non-experts were comparable to those generated by experts, supporting a role for citizen scientists in addressing authentic hypothesis-driven research. Data aggregators and publishers benefit significantly from knowing how their collections data are being used and attributed, the number of records and data sets being downloaded, the types of individuals who are finding these data useful, and the impact of projects for which the data are used. Usage metrics, in particular, help herbaria document value to institutional administrators as well as potential funders, and assist herbarium directors seek out and target underserved or expanding audiences. Cantrill (2018) summarizes tracked usage of nearly 900,000 records from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, served through the Australasian Virtual Herbarium, and details trends in data usage since 2009. Queries were tracked in three broad categories, including general use, non-research use, and scientific research use, with histories of how these categories and their subcategories have become more refined over the past decade. Cantrill points out that even with more highly resolved classifications, about one third of all queries still remain unclassified. He further notes that although the data give a glimpse of data use as reported by users, they do not provide a metric for understanding the impact of the projects for which they were downloaded. Future research must assess this issue if we are to understand and report the full impact of our collections. This collection of papers provides a current snapshot of some of the issues surrounding the aggregation and use of digitized herbarium data and of some of the many possible uses of these data in research and education. However, the field is changing rapidly, with new tools for data mining, image analysis, and data tracking coming available at a rapid pace. The application of innovative analytic, algorithmic, and informatics approaches to centuries-old specimens is revolutionizing the role of herbaria and other museum collections in modern biology. Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio) is funded by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation's Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections program (Co-operative Agreements EF-1115210 and DBI-1547229). The authors thank the contributors to this special issue of Applications in Plant Sciences for their contributions to two symposia on Green Digitization (at Botany 2017 and the XIX International Botanical Congress), and we thank the Botanical Society of America and the International Botanical Congress Organizing Committee for supporting these symposia.

Citizen science (CS) initiatives can transform how some ecological data are collected. Herbivory is a fundamental ecological interaction, but herbivory rates in many natural systems are unknown due in part to lack of personnel for monitoring efforts. This limits our ability to understand broad ecological patterns relevant to herbivory. Fortunately, accurate and reliable visual estimation techniques for assessing herbivory could be amenable to CS approaches. In 2008, I developed a CS training initiative (the Million Leaf Project, MLP) to measure herbivory based on a seven-category visual assessment of leaf area removed (LAR). From 2010 to 2018, 394 citizen scientists assessed damage on 175,421 leaves to test the hypothesis that herbivory varies between understory and canopy leaves in a Peruvian tropical forest. In support of this hypothesis, the longitudinal CS data reveal that understory leaves consistently experience more herbivory than do canopy leaves on average (18.3% vs. 12.3%, P < 0.001), a difference that was consistent regardless of CS observer age. Furthermore, data integrity was high, even though younger participants showed some leaf selection bias. The MLP is based on a simple technique, intended to broaden public participation in ecological science, and applicable to any ecological system in which herbivory or leaf damage occurs.

To study and understand the importance of Internet of Things-driven citizen science (IoT-CS) combined with data satisficing, we set up and undertook a citizen science experiment for air quality (AQ) in four Pakistan cities using twenty-one volunteers. We used quantitative methods to analyse the AQ data. Three research questions (RQ) were posed as follows: Which factors affect CS IoT-CS AQ data quality (RQ1)? How can we make science more inclusive by dealing with the lack of scientists, training and high-quality equipment (RQ2)? Can a lack of calibrated data readings be overcome to yield otherwise useful results for IoT-CS AQ data analysis (RQ3)? To address RQ1, an analysis of related work revealed that multiple causal factors exist. Good practice guidelines were adopted to promote higher data quality in CS studies. Additionally, we also proposed a classification of CS instruments to help better understand the data quality challenges. To answer RQ2, user engagement workshops were undertaken as an effective method to make CS more inclusive and also to train users to operate IoT-CS AQ devices more understandably. To address RQ3, it was proposed that a more feasible objective is that citizens leverage data satisficing such that AQ measurements can detect relevant local variations. Additionally, we proposed several recommendations. Our top recommendations are that: a deep (citizen) science approach should be fostered to support a more inclusive, knowledgeable application of science en masse for the greater good; It may not be useful or feasible to cross-check measurements from cheaper versus more expensive calibrated instrument sensors in situ. Hence, data satisficing may be more feasible; additional cross-checks that go beyond checking if co-located low-cost and calibrated AQ measurements correlate under equivalent conditions should be leveraged.