ArticlePloS one2019
Evaluating the ability of citizen scientists to identify bumblebee (Bombus) species.
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Using Community Science and eDNA to Inform a State-Designed Marine Protected Area Monitoring Program: A Case Study from Malibu, California.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Integrating data to assess occupancy patterns of an endangered bumble bee.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- LIFE 4 Pollinators' platform: How citizen science can help monitoring plants and pollinators.AoB PLANTS · 2025Article
- A Method for Conveying Confidence in iNaturalist Observations: A Case Study Using Non-Native Marine Species.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Marine Citizen Science and the Conservation of Mediterranean Corals: The Relevance of Training, Expert Validation, and Robust Sampling Protocols.Environmental management · 2024Article
- Effects of study design parameters on estimates of bee abundance and richness in agroecosystems: a meta-analysis.Annals of the Entomological Society of America · 2024Review
- Quantifying effectiveness and best practices for bumblebee identification from photographs.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- The value of twinned pollinator-pollen metabarcoding: bumblebee pollination service is weakly partitioned within a UK grassland community.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Community engagement and data quality: best practices and lessons learned from a citizen science project on birdsong.Journal of ornithology · 2023Article
- Deep learning increases the availability of organism photographs taken by citizens in citizen science programs.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Identifying, reducing, and communicating uncertainty in community science: a focus on alien species.Biological invasions · 2022Review
- Article
- A DNA barcode-based survey of wild urban bees in the Loire Valley, France.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.PloS one · 2021Article
- Temporal patterns of wildlife roadkill in the UK.PloS one · 2021Article
- Records of ctenophores from South Africa.PeerJ · 2021Article
- Citizen science project characteristics: Connection to participants' gains in knowledge and skills.PloS one · 2021Article
- Estimating possible bumblebee range shifts in response to climate and land cover changes.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Citizen science is an increasingly popular way of engaging volunteers in the collection of scientific data. Despite this, data quality remains a concern and there is little published evidence about the accuracy of records generated by citizen scientists. Here we compare data generated by two British citizen science projects, Blooms for Bees and BeeWatch, to determine the ability of volunteer recorders to identify bumblebee (Bombus) species. We assessed recorders' identification ability in two ways-as recorder accuracy (the proportion of expert-verified records correctly identified by recorders) and recorder success (the proportion of recorder-submitted identifications confirmed correct by verifiers). Recorder identification ability was low (<50% accuracy; <60% success), despite access to project specific bumblebee identification materials. Identification ability varied significantly depending on bumblebee species, with recorders most able to correctly identify species with distinct appearances. Blooms for Bees recorders (largely recruited from the gardening community) were markedly less able to identify bumblebees than BeeWatch recorders (largely individuals with a more specific interest in bumblebees). Within both projects, recorders demonstrated an improvement in identification ability over time. Here we demonstrate and quantify the essential role of expert verification within citizen science projects, and highlight where resources could be strengthened to improve recorder ability.
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