Brokering Trust in Citizen Science

Gilfedder, Mat; Robinson, Catherine J.; Watson, James; Campbell, T. G.; Sullivan, Brian L.; Possingham, Hugh P.

doi:10.1080/08941920.2018.1518507

Cited by 35 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…An extensive network of regional volunteers (Gilfedder et al. 2019) use their local expertise to filter eBird submissions, reviewing observations based on unexpected species or abundances of species that are not aligned with a priori expectations based on spatiotemporal coordinates.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birds rarely hybridize: A citizen science approach to estimating rates of hybridization in the wild*

2020

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The rate of hybridization among taxa is a central consideration in any discussion of speciation, but rates of hybridization are difficult to estimate in most wild populations of animals. We used a successful citizen science dataset, eBird, to estimate the rates of hybridization for wild birds in the United States. We calculated the frequency at which hybrid individuals belonging to different species, families, and orders of birds were observed. Between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2018, a total of 334,770,194 species records were reported to eBird within the United States. Of this total, 212,875 or 0.064% were reported as hybrids. This estimate is higher than the rate of hybridization (0.00167%) reported by Mayr based on impressions from a career studying museum specimens. However, if the 10 most influential hybrid species are removed from the eBird dataset, the rate of hybridization decreases substantially to about 0.009%. We conclude that the rate of hybridization for individuals in most bird species is extremely low, even though the potential for birds to produce fertile offspring through hybrid crosses is high. These findings indicate that there is strong prezygotic selection working in most avian species.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birds rarely hybridize: A citizen science approach to estimating rates of hybridization in the wild*

2020

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“…eBird works by enlisting volunteer birdwatchers who submit bird observations in the form of checklistsdefined as a list of birds seen and/or heard in a particular area at a particular time. An extensive network of regional volunteers (Gilfedder et al 2018) use their local expertise to create filters that flag potential submissions as unusual in nature: either unexpected species or abundances of species. If an observation trips a filter, then it is reviewed before inclusion in the database.…”

Section: Bird Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

How to build a biodiverse city: environmental determinants of bird diversity within and among 1581 cities

et al. 2020

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Cities are novel environments compared with the evolutionary history of the species that reside within them. Collectively, cities and their fauna can be thought of as ecosystems, recognized as playing a critical role in supporting global biodiversity, but they are fundamentally a combination of old species surviving or thriving in a new environment, and the mechanisms and underlying processes which support biodiversity within cities have not been investigated at broad macroecological scales. We aimed to understand-at a broad macroecological scale-how biodiversity responds both among and within cities. We integrated > 5 million eBird citizen science observations with remotely sensed landcover products throughout 1,581 cities within the continental United States. We first investigated the species-area relationship as it pertains to cities and compared the slope of this relationship to randomly sampled polygons. Second, we investigated how biodiversity responds to an urbanization gradient at the level of localized bird observations. We found strong support for the longstanding species-area relationship theory: geographically larger cities had greater species richness. Surprisingly, the species-area relationship was greater in cities when compared to the overall relationship for randomly sampled polygons in the study region (continental United States), which included many different land use and land cover types. Our finding suggests that diverse and heterogeneous cities play a significant role in supporting biodiversity. We also found that there is a consistent threshold where the level of urbanization begins to profoundly and negatively affect biodiversity. Critically, urban planning at the city-scale and at a local-scale (e.g., neighborhood) should focus on preserving attributes of water and tree-cover for increased biodiversity to keep as much of the city as possible above this threshold value.

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“…eBird works by enlisting volunteer birdwatchers who submit bird observations in the form of 'checklists' -defined as a list of birds seen or heard in a specified area. An extensive network of regional volunteers (Gilfedder et al 2018) use their local expertise to provide filters for the submissions, limiting observations based on unexpected species or abundances of species. If an observation trips a 'filter' then it is reviewed before inclusion in the database.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A continental measure of urbanness predicts avian response to local urbanization

et al. 2019

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Understanding species‐specific relationships with their environment is essential for ecology, biogeography and conservation biology. Moreover, understanding how these relationships change with spatial scale is critical to mitigating potential threats to biodiversity. But methods which measure inter‐specific variation in response to environmental parameters that are also generalizable across multiple spatial scales are scarce. We used broad‐scale avian citizen science data, over continental Australia, integrated with remotely‐sensed products, to produce a measure of urban‐tolerance for a given species at a continental‐scale. We then compared these urban‐tolerances to modelled responses to urbanization at a local‐scale, based on systematic sampling within four small cities. For 49 species which had sufficient data for modelling, we found a significant relationship (R2 = 0.51) between continental‐scale urbanness and local‐scale urbanness. We also found that relatively few citizen science observations (~250) are necessary for reliable estimates of continental‐scale species‐specific urban scores to predict local‐scale response to urbanization. Our approach demonstrates the applicability of broad‐scale citizen science data, contrasting both the spatial grain and extent of standard point‐count surveys generally only conducted at small spatial scales. Continental‐scale responses in Australia are representative of small‐scale responses to urbanization among four small cities in Australia, suggesting that our method of producing species‐specific urban scores is robust and may be generalized to other locations lacking appropriate data.

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Brokering Trust in Citizen Science

Cited by 35 publications

References 24 publications

Birds rarely hybridize: A citizen science approach to estimating rates of hybridization in the wild*

Birds rarely hybridize: A citizen science approach to estimating rates of hybridization in the wild*

How to build a biodiverse city: environmental determinants of bird diversity within and among 1581 cities

A continental measure of urbanness predicts avian response to local urbanization

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