Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 181, January 2015, Pages 236-244
Biological Conservation

Global change and local solutions: Tapping the unrealized potential of citizen science for biodiversity research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.10.021Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • We quantify the scale of biodiversity citizen science and its contribution to science.

  • Projects reach great taxonomic, spatial, and temporal extents.

  • 1.3–2.3 million volunteers contribute $667 million–$2.5 billion in-kind annually.

  • The majority of citizen science-collected data do not reach peer-reviewed literature.

  • A coordinated system would facilitate greater scientific use of these data.

Abstract

The collective impact of humans on biodiversity rivals mass extinction events defining Earth’s history, but does our large population also present opportunities to document and contend with this crisis? We provide the first quantitative review of biodiversity-related citizen science to determine whether data collected by these projects can be, and are currently being, effectively used in biodiversity research. We find strong evidence of the potential of citizen science: within projects we sampled (n = 388), ∼1.3 million volunteers participate, contributing up to $2.5 billion in-kind annually. These projects exceed most federally-funded studies in spatial and temporal extent, and collectively they sample a breadth of taxonomic diversity. However, only 12% of the 388 projects surveyed obviously provide data to peer-reviewed scientific articles, despite the fact that a third of these projects have verifiable, standardized data that are accessible online. Factors influencing publication included project spatial scale and longevity and having publically available data, as well as one measure of scientific rigor (taxonomic identification training). Because of the low rate at which citizen science data reach publication, the large and growing citizen science movement is likely only realizing a small portion of its potential impact on the scientific research community. Strengthening connections between professional and non-professional participants in the scientific process will enable this large data resource to be better harnessed to understand and address global change impacts on biodiversity.

Keywords

Biodiversity
Citizen science
Crowd sourcing
Global change
Volunteer monitoring
Climate change

Cited by (0)

1

These authors contributed equally to this work.

2

Present address: Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Boston, MA 02131, USA. Tel.: +1 781 296 4821.

3

Present address: School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. Tel.: +1 517 927 1659.

4

Present address: Luc Hoffmann Institute, WWF International, Avenue du Mont-Blanc 27, 1196 Gland, Switzerland. Tel.: +41 22 364 9075.

5

Tel.: +1 706 521 1553.

6

Tel.: +1 206 375 3052.

7

Tel.: +1 206 375 4182.

8

Tel.: +1 612 889 9669.

9

Tel.: +1 206 543 7389.

10

Tel.: +1 253 265 6139.

11

Tel.: +1 206 221 5787.