ArticleScientific reports2016
Patterns of contribution to citizen science biodiversity projects increase understanding of volunteers' recording behaviour.
Article in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Hoping for optimality or designing for inclusion: Persistence, learning, and the social network of citizen science.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Pooled it
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- Color aberration in malachite kingfishers: Insights from community science observations in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Extracting secondary data from citizen science images reveals host flower preferences of the Mexican grass-carrying waspEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Citizen science is a vital partnership for invasive alien species management and research.iScience · 2024Review
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- Integrating Citizen Scientist Data into the Surveillance System for Avian Influenza Virus, Taiwan.Emerging infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Citizen Science and Monitoring Forest Pests: a Beneficial Alliance?Current forestry reports · 2023Review
- Citizen science plant observations encode global trait patterns.Nature ecology & evolution · 2022Article
- Decision-making of citizen scientists when recording species observations.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Maximizing citizen scientists' contribution to automated species recognition.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Clavis: An open and versatile identification key format.PloS one · 2022Article
- Identifying, reducing, and communicating uncertainty in community science: a focus on alien species.Biological invasions · 2022Review
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- Large-bodied birds are over-represented in unstructured citizen science data.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Global abundance estimates for 9,700 bird species.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- A real-world implementation of a nationwide, long-term monitoring program to assess the impact of agrochemicals and agricultural practices on biodiversity.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
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7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The often opportunistic nature of biological recording via citizen science leads to taxonomic, spatial and temporal biases which add uncertainty to biodiversity estimates. However, such biases may also give valuable insight into volunteers' recording behaviour. Using Greater London as a case-study we examined the composition of three citizen science datasets - from Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC, iSpot and iRecord - with respect to recorder contribution and spatial and taxonomic biases, i.e. when, where and what volunteers record. We found most volunteers contributed few records and were active for just one day. Each dataset had its own taxonomic and spatial signature suggesting that volunteers' personal recording preferences may attract them towards particular schemes. There were also patterns across datasets: species' abundance and ease of identification were positively associated with number of records, as was plant height. We found clear hotspots of recording activity, the 10 most popular sites containing open water. We note that biases are accrued as part of the recording process (e.g. species' detectability) as well as from volunteer preferences. An increased understanding of volunteer behaviour gained from analysing the composition of records could thus enhance the fit between volunteers' interests and the needs of scientific projects.
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