ArticleBiological conservation2021
COVID-19 pandemic drives changes in participation in citizen science project "City Nature Challenge" in Tokyo.
Article in Biological conservation, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- The City Nature Challenge as an urban BioBlitz: evaluating Citizen Science contributions to biodiversity monitoring in Berlin.BMC ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- From community to science to community, enhancing remote sensing of water quality in Chesapeake Bay tributaries through participatory science.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Global impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on biodiversity data collection.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- What should be publicly funded in the Colombian health system? A mixed methods study of citizens' perceptions.BMJ open · 2025Article
- eBryoSoil: a citizen science application to monitor changes in soil ecosystems.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Influence of an extreme event-the COVID-19 pandemic-On establishment of and data collection by a citizen science project.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- Conservation ethics in the time of the pandemic: Does increasing remote access advance social justice?Biological conservation · 2022Article
- Farmers and Local Residents Collaborate: Application of a Participatory Citizen Science Approach to Characterising Air Quality in a Rural Area in The Netherlands.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Drivers of avian habitat use and detection of backyard birds in the Pacific Northwest during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- COVID-19 lockdown measures impacted citizen science hedgehog observation numbers in Bavaria, Germany.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- First landscape-scale survey of the background level of COVID-19 face mask litter: Exploring the potential for citizen science data collection during a 'pollution pilgrimage' of walking a 250-km roadside transect.The Science of the total environment · 2022Article
- COVID restrictions impact wildlife monitoring in Australia.Biological conservation · 2022Article
- Citizen science: A way forward in tackling the plastic pollution crisis during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.The Science of the total environment · 2022Article
- Monitoring biological water quality by volunteers complements professional assessments.PloS one · 2022Article
- Towards Insect-Friendly Road Lighting-A Transdisciplinary Multi-Stakeholder Approach Involving Citizen Scientists.Insects · 2021Article
- Global COVID-19 lockdown highlights humans as both threats and custodians of the environment.Biological conservation · 2021Article
- Envisioning a resilient future for biodiversity conservation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.People and nature (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2021Review
- The conservation and ecological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.Biological conservation · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way large citizen science events can be carried out-reducing gatherings of large groups and shifting toward individual, small-group, and online participation. This paper aims to describe changes in participant engagement in the City Nature Challenge (CNC) in Tokyo. The CNC is a four-day international event held in April to document biodiversity in cities using an online citizen science platform, iNaturalist. To assess the impact of COVID-19, we compared the number of participants, observations, species, and identification rates in 2019 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (during the pandemic). We also used cluster analysis to elucidate participation patterns, and we assessed changes in the geographical distribution of observation sites. The results showed: (1) the number of participants and observations decreased by 63% and 68%, respectively; however, the number of species was almost the same in the two years, and the identification rate increased 154% in 2020 relative to 2019. (2) The most enthusiastic participants contributed in similar amounts in 2019 and 2020, but participation by less enthusiastic volunteers drastically declined. (3) The spatial distribution of observation sites changed from cluster-like to scattered. Understanding participant engagement during the pandemic could help to improve data quality, reduce geographical bias in observations, maintain records, and recruit more users in future years. Online citizen science could provide opportunities for many citizens to get outside and participate in conservation science during and after the pandemic.
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