Citizen Science Research Articles

Digitising the Deep Past: Machine Learning for Rock Art Motif Classification in an Educational Citizen Science Application

Digitising The Deep Past (DDP) is an interdisciplinary project based at Griffith University, Australia, that innovates in three areas: Indigenous cultural heritage, Indigenous education, and Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The project investigates the use of a purpose-built citizen science application that engages Indigenous youth in educational exercises rooted in local cultural heritage, specifically rock art, making learning more engaging and exposing them to digital technologies. Furthermore, ML models trained with the data gathered through these educational activities can then assist with classifying new rock art images and assisting rangers and archaeologists with site archiving and conservation efforts. This paper discusses the project's significance in enhancing Indigenous science and technology education and outlines its results in utilising ML for rock art classification. Adopting deep learning in rock art classification offers a compelling avenue for the automated analysis and interpretation of heritage objects and places. However, training deep neural networks from scratch often requires enormous datasets and computational resources, posing challenges for domain-specific applications with smaller datasets. With a dataset comprising approximately 3,100 labelled rock art images, we evaluated various tools within the transfer learning toolbox using three prominent pre-trained architectures: VGG19, ResNet50, and EfficientNet V2 S. Through the collaborative efforts of Indigenous students and ML, we demonstrate that even with limited training resources, using transfer learning to re-purpose an existing model can achieve motif classification Top-1 accuracy of 79.76% and Top-5 of 94.56%. The project ran from 2021 to 2023, including three week-long sessions with students of Laura State School to trial the citizen science app and the evaluation, development and refinement of the ML models. The DDP project not only serves as a beacon for community-centric research but also forges a new frontier in integrating Indigenous cultural heritage with modern technology. The impact reaches beyond academia, directly enriching the educational experience for Indigenous students in Laura and equipping local rangers and archaeologists with advanced tools for rock art conservation.

RANGE EXTENSION AND NEW MUNICIPALITY RECORD OF Abronia taeniata (ANGUIDAE) FROM PINAL DE AMOLES, QUERÉTARO, MEXICO

We present data of a specimen which represents a new municipality record and range extension of Abronia taeniata for Pinal de Amoles, Querétaro, México. We also provide a description of the vegetation at the site, and comments on the species’ resilience to habitat perturbation. Finally, we suggest the existence of a previously undocumented large population of A. taeniata in Sierra de Pinal de Amoles based on our finding, and on several observations of the species available through a citizen science platform.

The impact of citizen science on environmental attitudes, environmental knowledge, environmental awareness to pro–environmental citizenship behaviour

ABSTRACT Pro-environmental behaviour is worth researching to understand the relationship between consumer behaviours and environmentally friendly consumptions. This research aims to investigate the impact of citizen science on pro-environmental citizenship behaviour when environmental attitude, environmental knowledge, and environmental awareness intermediaries in an emerging market like Thailand. The sample of 394 Thai citizens was collected from main provinces in different regions of Thailand, including Bangkok, Khon Kaen, Lamphun, and Phuket. PLS-SEM was employed to test the study hypotheses by applying the structural equation modelling approach to analyse the collected data. The main findings show that there was a positive impact of citizen science on citizen environmental attitude, citizen environmental awareness, and citizen environmental knowledge towards pro-environmental citizenship behaviour. The study also reveals that these mediated relationships play a pivotal role in translating environmental consciousness into actionable behaviours that support sustainable use and consumption. Furthermore, increased citizen environmental awareness plays a crucial role in recognising the urgency and importance of engaging in sustainable practices. Awareness acts as a catalyst, prompting individuals to reflect on their consumption patterns and lifestyle choices, ultimately leading to more environmentally friendly behaviours. Marketers may implement it with green marketing strategies by increasing more favourable to sustainable products within consumers.

Zero‐shot insect detection via weak language supervision

AbstractCheap and ubiquitous sensing has made collecting large agricultural datasets relatively straightforward. These large datasets (for instance, citizen science data curation platforms like iNaturalist) can pave the way for developing powerful artificial intelligence (AI) models for detection and counting. However, traditional supervised learning methods require labeled data, and manual annotation of these raw datasets with useful labels (such as bounding boxes or segmentation masks) can be extremely laborious, expensive, and error‐prone. In this paper, we demonstrate the power of zero‐shot computer vision methods—a new family of approaches that require (almost) no manual supervision—for plant phenomics applications. Focusing on insect detection as the primary use case, we show that our models enable highly accurate detection of insects in a variety of challenging imaging environments. Our technical contributions are two‐fold: (a) We curate the Insecta rank class of iNaturalist to form a new benchmark dataset of approximately 6 million images consisting of 2526 agriculturally and ecologically important species, including pests and beneficial insects. (b) Using a vision‐language object detection method coupled with weak language supervision, we are able to automatically annotate images in this dataset with bounding box information localizing the insect within each image. Our method succeeds in detecting diverse insect species present in a wide variety of backgrounds, producing high‐quality bounding boxes in a zero‐shot manner with no additional training cost. This open dataset can serve as a use‐inspired benchmark for the AI community. We demonstrate that our method can also be used for other applications in plant phenomics, such as fruit detection in images of strawberry and apple trees. Overall, our framework highlights the promise of zero‐shot approaches to make high‐throughput plant phenotyping more affordable.

Coral Health and Benthic Composition of Reefs in an MPA and Open-access Site in Western Calatagan, Batangas

Monitoring hard coral health and diversity is essential in assessing their resilience to disturbances such as coral bleaching. This study gathered baseline data on the health and benthic composition of coral reefs in western Calatagan, Batangas, the Philippines. Coral health in two sites – Buntong Gasang and the Quilitisan Marine Protected Area (MPA) – was assessed using the CoralWatch citizen science Coral Health Chart method. The average color score of more than 200 coral colonies was compared between sites and coral growth forms (i.e. branching, boulder, and plate). In addition, benthic composition in both sites was determined using photoquadrats. Buntong Gasang Point and Quilitisan MPA had mean coral scores that are 4.4 (± 1.0 SD) and 3.6 (± 1.0 SD), respectively, thus indicating normal symbiont densities. The analysis also showed little differences in mean color scores among coral growth forms ranging from 3.8–4.3. Both sites had relatively high coral cover (mean = 52.3% ± 4.3% SD in Buntong Gasang, mean = 49.7% ± 8.7% SD in Quilitisan MPA) despite having different benthic compositions [PERMANOVA, F(1,8) = 8.87, p = 0.006]. Branching coral cover was about six times higher in Buntong Gasang Point (17%), whereas encrusting corals dominated at Quilitisan MPA (~ 39%). In addition, algal cover was higher in Quilitisan (45.0%) than in Buntong Gasang (35.5%). Although other studies show that branching corals are less resistant than massive or encrusting forms to coral bleaching, examining coral color suggests that reefs in both Buntong Gasang and Quilitisan MPA appeared to have comparably recovered from the mass bleaching events in 2020–2021. However, regular monitoring is needed to assess the responses of these reefs to future thermal stress. This study shows the potential of monitoring coral color in assessing coral reef health in the Philippines.

Citizen scientists: Unveiling motivations and characteristics influencing initial and sustained participation in an agricultural project.

Citizen science, where non-specialists collaborate with scientists, has surged in popularity. While it offers an innovative approach to research involvement, the domain of agri-environmental research participation, particularly in terms of citizen recruitment and retention, remains relatively unexplored. To investigate how what factors influence initial and sustained participation in an agronomic citizen science project, we performed a large survey during the case-study "Soy in 1000 Gardens". We obtained data on citizens motivations, general values, environmental concern, prior citizen science experience, and knowledge regarding sustainable food consumption and garden management and applied a two-step selection model to correct for potential self-selection bias on our participation outcomes. Initially, citizen scientists appear to be mostly motivated by gaining knowledge, having fun social interactions and environmental concern with regards to the effects on others, while the desire for enhancing or protecting their ego is less prominent. They also display higher knowledge and self-transcending values. Sustained participants however, are significantly older and share a stronger sense of moral obligation than their dropped-out counterparts. Moreover, prior experience seems to positively influence the length of their participation, while higher knowledge has a positive impact on the amount of data contributed. These insights offer strategies for tailored engagement that should emphasize collective impact, align with intrinsic values, and foster a sense of moral duty, with potential to enhance agri-environmental citizen science initiatives' effectiveness in addressing environmental challenges.

Enhancing citizen science impact in environmental monitoring: Targeted engagement strategies with stakeholder groups

Understanding the motivations and benefits of citizen science (CS) participants is critical to the success of environmental science projects that rely on data collection from engaged citizens. Tailored communication with citizen scientists is essential, leading to the need to target specific societal groups for extensive and high-quality data sets. The purpose of the study was to apply marketing concepts such as stakeholder analysis, value proposition canvas (VPC), and key performance indicators (KPIs) to CS projects. The study examined the extent to which these strategies can be applied to CS projects and add value, resulting in improved recruitment and retention of participants, as well as improved project management. The dynamic landscape of CS projects requires adapted business-oriented approaches supporting ongoing participation with high motivation, acknowledging community needs, and recognizing institutional scientists, akin to targeting potential customers. The case study focuses on the CityCLIM initiative, an EU-funded project collecting urban climate data, especially air temperature, using mobile weather stations. The CityCLIM VPC, analyzing stakeholder groups, facilitated tailored communication strategies by analyzing stakeholder groups and highlighting the effectiveness of the CS cycling initiative within the “Stadtradeln” program. Impact KPIs served as a roadmap for strategic refinement, while data quality KPIs identified deficiencies, guiding adjustments to the campaign. Applied marketing tools improved project planning, engagement, and evaluation, demonstrating the potential of this concept. Adapting marketing tools to recruitment and communication strategies benefits CS projects by targeting specific groups. The holistic integration of stakeholder analysis, VPC, and KPIs streamlines project management and creates a framework for sustainable success. This adaptation forms a robust toolkit for CS project coordinators, contributing to effective communication, engagement, and impact assessment. Applying marketing tools significantly increases CS projects’ reach and impact, ensuring long-term success and meaningful scientific contributions.

Jellyfish in Hong Kong: a citizen science dataset.

The Hong Kong Jellyfish Project is a citizen science initiative started in early 2021 to enhance our understanding of jellyfish in Hong Kong. Here, we present a dataset of jellyfish sightings collected by citizen scientists from 2021 through 2023 within local waters. Citizen scientists submitted photographs and other data (time, date, and location) using a website, iNaturalist project, and social media. Sightings were validated using references from the literature. A total of 1,020 usable observations are included in this dataset, showing the occurrence and distribution of jellyfish in Hong Kong in 2021-2023. This dataset is now publicly available and discoverable in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database and is available for download. This data can be used to enhance our understanding of the biodiversity of local marine ecosystems.

Ticks and tick-borne diseases from Mallorca Island, Spain.

Ixodid ticks are obligate blood-feeding arthropods and important vectors of pathogens. In Mallorca, almost no data on the tick fauna are available. Herein, we investigated ticks and tick-borne pathogens in ticks collected from dogs, a cat and humans in Mallorca as result of a citizen science project. A total of 91 ticks were received from German tourists and residents in Mallorca. Ticks were collected from March to October 2023 from dogs, cat and humans, morphologically and genetically identified and tested for pathogens by PCRs. Six tick species could be identified: Ixodes ricinus (n = 2), Ixodes ventalloi (n = 1), Hyalomma lusitanicum (n = 7), Hyalomma marginatum (n = 1), Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. (n = 71) and Rhipicephalus pusillus (n = 9). Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. adults were collected from dogs and four females from a cat and the 16S rDNA sequences identified it as Rh. sanguineus s.s. Hyalomma lusitanicum was collected from 1 human, 1 dog and 5 specimens were collected from the ground in the community of Santanyi, together with one H. marginatum male. This is the first report of Hyalomma marginatum in Mallorca. Both I. ricinus were collected from humans and I. ventalloi female was collected from a dog. All ticks tested negative for Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Coxiella spp., Francisella spp., and piroplasms. In 32/71 (45%) specimens of Rh. sanguineus s.s., Rickettsia spp. could be detected and in 18/32 (56.2%) sequenced tick DNAs R. massiliae was identified. Ixodes ventalloi female and both I. ricinus tested positive in the screening PCR, but the sequencing for the identification of the Rickettsia sp. failed.

Citizen science as a vehicle to address multiple policy objectives: Case studies from Australia.

Despite increasing interest in citizen science as an approach to engage members of the public in research and decision making about health and wellbeing, there is a lack of practical evidence to guide policy and practice organisations to utilise these approaches. In this study we investigated how and why citizen science came to be incorporated into the work of two policy organisations. We offer two in-depth case studies of Australian government organisations which have utilised citizen science in environmental and healthy ageing policy. Interviews with organisational informants and relevant documents were analysed inductively to explore how citizen science came to be adopted, legitimised and supported. Citizen science was utilised to address multiple organisational objectives, including increasing community participation in science; enhancing individuals' wellbeing, learning, and skills, and generating data to support research and policy in a relatively cost-effective manner. In both cases, grant funding was a mechanism to support citizen science, with project delivery facilitated through academic-policy partnerships and led by external academic or community partners. Although citizen science is relatively new in policy and practice settings, this study underscores the value of these approaches in realising co-benefits for organisations, academics, and community members. The support and advocacy of senior managers as 'champions', and a willingness to invest in trialling new approaches to address policy problems are necessary ingredients to foster acceptance and legitimacy of citizen science. SO WHAT?: Citizen science initiatives can be strategically utilised by health promotion organisations to enact priorities related to genuine community involvement, support research and innovation and facilitate collaboration and partnerships between academic, policy and community stakeholders.

A citizen science method to monitor a polyphagous shot hole borer infestation in Johannesburg's urban forest

Citizen science has become a powerful tool for gathering data, and the validity of these data should be tested. The accuracy of a citizen science database used to monitor the polyphagous shothole borer (PSHB) (Euwallacea fornicatus) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) infestation in a suburb of the city of Johannesburg was assessed. Out of 785 trees surveyed by the citizen scientists, 157 trees (20%) were selected as a validation data set to confirm the tree identity, tree health status and level of PSHB infestation. A chi-square (χ2) test was performed to examine whether there was a significant agreement between the citizen scientists’ and researcher’s data used for the classification of the tree infestation, tree health status and PSHB infestation holes. A Cohen’s kappa coefficient was calculated to determine the level of agreement between the two different sources of data, for the infested parts (trunk, main branches, and canopy branches) of the trees surveyed and PSHB infestation signs. The two surveys showed no significance difference for classifying tree health status and PSHB infestation holes. There was a high level of agreement between citizen scientists and the researcher ratings for measures of PSHB infestation (kappa values ranging between 0.71 and 0.89) and the level of agreement was significant. In conclusion, citizen science allowed us to obtain a large quantity of data at a low cost that correlated with the researchers’ validation dataset. Citizen science is a useful method for monitoring PSHB in a diverse urban forest in trees that show obvious signs of infestation.

Delivering citizen science online and hybrid: impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on recruitment and engagement

This small-scale study explores the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on running and delivering a large-scale, international participatory citizen science project. In doing so, it seeks to identify the challenges posed by the pandemic for the research and practitioner community, as well as suggesting useful strategies, tools and helpful approaches for meeting similar challenges in the future. WeCount was a citizen science project aimed at empowering citizens to take a leading role in the production of data, evidence and knowledge around mobility in their own neighbourhoods. The project was originally designed around in-person engagement and interaction with citizens in five European case studies, but it was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In this pilot study, we conducted seven email interviews with internal project members. Data were analysed using content analysis, and five main themes emerged from the interviews: Recruitment (overall and of specific groups); Uncertainty; Logistics; Digital skills; and Blended approach. We report on the lessons learnt about online citizen recruitment and engagement to support future citizen science and other participatory research projects, not only during times of crisis, but also in deciding when it is and is not a good time to use online methods of recruitment and engagement.

An Overlooked Group of Citizen Scientists in Non-Indigenous Species (NIS) Information: Shell Collectors and Their Contribution to Molluscan NIS Xenodiversity

This work reports on 60 marine alien mollusks from nine countries across the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Marmara collected by two Belgian citizen scientists. Some of their published observations concerning collection dates are compared with the year of first publication for these alien mollusks reported in the literature, which enable us to backdate some of their introductions and set new first Mediterranean records for two species. This underlines the importance of collaboration between volunteers and institutional scientists in tracing variations and changes in the environment and biodiversity.

Using public-sourced photos to track changes in moose antler size during a 20-year hunting ban

Hunting directly impacts the population dynamics of ungulates and can have a significant effect on the quality of phenotypic traits such as horns or antlers. In Poland, following a demographic collapse in the 1990s and the introduction of a hunting ban in 2001, the population of moose (Alces alces) has increased from 1,800 to over 20,000 individuals, recolonising its former range. As the moose is a charismatic species and a popular subject for nature photography, we analysed changes in antler size and shape in this cervid between 2005 and 2021 based on photos of male moose and antler casts provided by photographers or available in social media. Our findings indicate that during the hunting ban, the probability of observing the cervina antler type significantly decreased over time, from 47% in 2012 to 28% in 2021. Meanwhile, the probability of observing the intermediate and palmate antler types significantly increased from 44 to 53% and from 9 to 19%, respectively. The mean number of tines significantly increased from 3.2 in 2005 to 4.7 in 2021, and the antler size index significantly increased from 3.4 to 3.9. The most likely mechanism behind the observed changes could be the ageing of a population released from hunting pressure. We also observed regional variation in antler size, which is likely related to differences in environmental conditions. Our study serves as an example of how passive citizen science can contribute to our understanding of ecological trends and the quantification of population patterns. It also has important implications for management of species affected by trophy hunting.

A multidisciplinary approach unveils the distribution of the Alpine long-eared bat Plecotus macrobullaris (Vespertilionidae) in Italy

Abstract Genetic techniques have allowed to identify a number of cryptic species of bats and to better define their distribution ranges and conservation status. Long-eared bats Plecotus spp. occur throughout Eurasia and Africa, with a high number of morphologically similar species, often occurring in sympatry. Therefore, disentangling the distribution of one species from another may be challenging. Italy represents a diversity hotspot for long-eared bats in Europe, hosting six species belonging to the genus Plecotus. In this study we report on both published and unpublished investigations on the Alpine long-eared bat Plecotus macrobullaris by integrating field and molecular methods, as well as opportunistic verified records from citizen scientists (i.e., individuals showing the diagnostic triangular chin pad in photos), to redefine the distribution of this species in Italy. We retrieved a total of 149 published records and 16 new confirmed records, namely 7 from iNaturalist, 6 from Facebook and 3 from molecular analyses. In Italy, the species occurs throughout the Alpine and Pre-Alpine chain, as well as in close proximity to the sea, and in Northeastern plains. Based on new records, we proved that it occurs also in other areas, including the Northern Apennine ridge. Our findings call for the application of an integrated approach in investigating cryptic species, that provides valuable data to support conservation assessments and the establishment of proper protection measures for poorly known species.

From citizen science to AI models: Advancing cetacean vocalization automatic detection through multi-annotator campaigns

Continuous underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) has emerged as a strong tool for cetacean research. To handle the vast volume of collected data, it is essential to employ automated detection and classification methods. The recent advancement of deep learning, involving model training and testing, requires a large amount of labeled data. These labels are derived through the manual annotation of audio files often reliant on human experts. Based on an annotation campaign focusing on blue whale calls in the Indian Ocean involving 19 novice annotators and one expert in bioacoustics, this study explores the integration of novice annotators in marine bioacoustics research, through citizen science programs, which could drastically increase the size of labeled datasets and enhance the performance of detection and classification models. The analysis reveals distinctive annotation profiles influenced by the complexity of vocalizations and the annotators' strategies, ranging from conservative to permissive. To address the challenges of annotation discrepancies, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are trained on annotations from both novices and the expert. The results show variations in model performance. Our work highlights the importance of annotation guidelines encouraging a more conservative approach to improve overall annotation quality. In an effort to optimize the potential of multi-annotation and mitigate the presence of noisy labels, two annotation aggregation methods (majority voting and soft labeling) are proposed and tested. The results demonstrate that both methods, particularly when a sufficient number of annotators are involved, significantly improve model performance and reduce variability: the standard deviation of the area under PR and ROC curves fall under 0.02 for both vocalizations with 13 aggregated annotators, while it was at 0.17 and 0.21 for the Blue Whale Dcalls and 0.05 and 0.04 for the SEIO PBW vocalizations with all annotators separately. Moreover, these aggregation methods enable the training of models using non-expert annotations that achieve performance of models trained with expert annotations. These findings suggest that crowdsourced annotations from novice annotators can be a viable alternative to expert annotations.

Longitudinal Study of Motivation, Attitude, and Knowledge of Citizen Scientists Monitoring Plastic Pollution On Dutch Riverbank

Across the world, the number of citizen science projects focusing on plastic pollution is increasing. These projects often last for multiple years, which makes retaining volunteers challenging. However, our knowledge is limited regarding the effect of long-term involvement on citizen scientists’ motivation, attitude, and knowledge, especially for plastic pollution projects. Therefore, this study measured citizen scientists’ motivation, attitude, and knowledge in the Dutch Clean Rivers project before and during monitoring plastic pollution on riverbanks between 2017 and 2021. In total, 403 Clean Rivers participants completed a pre-survey, and a portion of them participated in one or multiple post-surveys throughout the years of monitoring. They were especially driven by Project Action motivations and Environmental motivations like tackling the source of pollution and doing something about the plastic soup, rather than being motivated by an Interest in Scientific Research like the desire to learn about scientific research. Project Action motivations increased significantly, especially within the first year of participation. Participants’ attitudes towards nature and science were initially high and did not increase significantly. Furthermore, while participants’ knowledge of plastic pollution was already high at the start, their knowledge of scientific research was not, and both increased significantly, especially in the first year of participation. The findings of this longitudinal study can contribute to improving the recruitment and retention of volunteers in current and future citizen science projects.

Citizen science in action: Time-resolved immunofluorescence-based field detection of antibiotics with portable analytical kit

Citizen scientist-based environmental monitoring and public education are becoming increasingly popular. However, current technologies for antibiotic-based novel contaminant identification are still restricted to laboratory sample collection and analysis due to detection methodologies and apparatus limitations. This study developed a time-resolved immunofluorescence-based simultaneous field-based assay for ciprofloxacin (CIP) and enrofloxacin (ENR) that matches test results to geographic locations. The assay helps the public understand the potential levels of antibiotic exposures in their environments and helps them take appropriate action to reduce risk. The assay was developed using smartphones and social software in addition to rapid testing. The method uses a portable, low-cost analytical kit with a smartphone app to build a field-based detection platform for the detection and analysis of ENR and CIP in water and aquatic products. The methodological evaluation was good, with detection limits of 0.4 ng/mL and 0.5 ng/g for ENR in water and fish, and quantification limits of 1.2 ng/mL and 1.4 ng/g, with recoveries of 89.0 %–101.0 % and 78.0 %–97.0 %. For CIP in water and fish, the limits of detection were 0.3 ng/mL and 0.4 ng/g, the limits of quantification were 0.9 ng/mL and 1.2 ng/g, and the recoveries were 75.0 %–91.0 % and 72.0 %–89.0 %, both with coefficients of variation <15 %. These limits were sufficient to prevent the two antibiotics from crossing over during simultaneous detection. The assay was validated using real samples to assess the effectiveness of the assay platform in field deployments, and the results were consistent with those obtained through liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) techniques. In addition, the TRFIA assay process requires less time, uses more portable instruments, and is less complex than traditional methods. This study provides a new scientific, accurate, and rapid detection method for antibiotic detection by citizen scientists, helping scientists to obtain a wider range of data and providing more opportunities to solve scientific problems.

Universiti Sains Malaysia Campus Nature Challenge: A Collaborative Citizen Science Initiative For Biodiversity Conservation And Environmental Awareness

Considering the growing global biodiversity crisis, citizen science initiatives have emerged as powerful tools for long-term ecological data collection involving non-experts in research. “USM Campus Nature Challenge”, a collaborative effort led by the USM Library in partnership with the School of Biological Sciences and the Centre for Global Sustainability Studies, aimed to create awareness about ecological concerns and biodiversity conservation within the university community by documenting biodiversity at USM’s main campus. Methodologically, the project organized a 6-week ‘bio blitz’ event open to citizen scientists to explore the flora and fauna of USM’s diverse campus habitats while cataloging species through the iNaturalist app. The results revealed that plant species dominated the observations, constituting 64.9% of recorded biodiversity and reflecting the rich botanical diversity on the USM campus. Further observations included insects (10.4%), fungi (7.6%), birds (6.3%), and various other species, underscoring the complexity of the ecological web of the campus. An evaluation of data quality revealed that 36.6% of the species identifications were categorized as “Research Grade”, 47.8% were designated as needing further identification, and 15.7% were graded as “casual”. In conclusion, the project leveraged the approach to create more public awareness about local ecological concerns and to strengthen the University community’s connection to nature. This USM Library’s pilot initiative closely aligns with the Open Science movement related to citizen science in Malaysia.

Micrometeorite collections: a review and their current status.

Micrometeorites are estimated to represent the main part of the present flux of extraterrestrial matter found on the Earth's surface and provide valuable samples to probe the interplanetary medium. Here, we describe large and representative collections of micrometeorites currently available to the scientific community. These include Antarctic collections from surface ice and snow, as well as glacial sediments from the eroded top of nunataks-summits outcropping from the icesheet-and moraines. Collections extracted from deep-sea sediments (DSS) produced a large number of micrometeorites, in particular, iron-rich cosmic spherules that are rarer in other collections. Collections from the old and stable surface of the Atacama Desert show that finding large numbers of micrometeorites is not restricted to polar regions or DSS. The advent of rooftop collections marks an important step into involving citizen science in the study of micrometeorites, as well as providing potential sampling locations over all latitudes to explore the modern flux. We explore their strengths of the collections to address specific scientific questions and their potential weaknesses. The future of micrometeorite research will involve the finding of large fossil micrometeorite collections and benefit from recent advances in sampling cosmic dust directly from the air. This article is part of the theme issue 'Dust in the Solar System and beyond'.