Decline of Amateur Lepidoptera Collectors Threatens the Future of Specimen-Based Research

Fischer, Erica E.; Cobb, Neil S.; Kawahara, Akito Y.; Zaspel, Jennifer M.; Cognato, Anthony I.

doi:10.1093/biosci/biaa152

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Between 1970-2010 the average number of occurrences collected per year was 4,383, whereas between 2010-2020 the average number of mussel occurrences collected per year was 1,398a 68% decrease. The decrease in US freshwater mussel collecting is alarming and mirrors patterns observed in other faunas (Malaney & Cook 2018;Fischer et al 2021;Rohwer et al 2022). The decline of collecting is likely to be driven by numerous biological (e.g., declining mussel diversity, distribution, and abundance) and practical factors (e.g., collecting and collections are underfunded).…”

Section: Temporal Patternsmentioning

confidence: 87%

Synthesis of natural history collections data reveals patterns of US freshwater mussel diversity and decline

Pfeiffer

DuBose

Keogh

2022

Preprint

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Natural history collections are uniquely positioned to chronicle biodiversity changes across time and space and are a fundamental data source in taxon-based research and conservation. With over 90 species listed under the Endangered Species Act, freshwater mussels are one of the most imperiled animal assemblages in the United States and are the focus of considerable conservation efforts (e.g., species status assessments, listing decisions, and recovery plans). Unfortunately, natural history collections data is often underleveraged in such efforts, in part, because much of the data are decentralized and nonstandard, and thus, difficult to access and analyze. Our objective herein is to synthesize, standardize, and enrich digitized US freshwater mussel collections data to better suit the needs of conservation stakeholders. We aggregated specimen records from 45 US natural history collections and enriched these records by programmatically standardizing taxonomic information, flagging potentially problematic records, and joining records with freshwater-specific spatial frameworks (e.g., hydrological units and stream segments) and their associated metadata (e.g., area, stream order, discharge, velocity). The assembled dataset includes 410,665 records, 302 species, and 1,494 hydrological units (8 digit-level). Using these enriched records, we estimated ecological attributes for over 280 freshwater mussel species including aspects of range size (i.e., area of occupancy and change in area of occupancy) and habitat preferences (i.e., stream order size, discharge, slope, and velocity). Listed species had significantly fewer occurrences (p<0.001) and smaller area of occupancy (p<0.001) in comparison to non-listed listed species. Listed species also tended to have a higher stream order preference (p<0.001) and discharge preference than non-listed species (p<0.001). These important ecological attributes have not been incorporated into freshwater mussel conservation efforts in a quantitative way and our novel estimates can be used to make more data-driven ecological and conservation inferences.

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Section: Temporal Patternsmentioning

confidence: 87%

Synthesis of natural history collections data reveals patterns of US freshwater mussel diversity and decline

Pfeiffer

DuBose

Keogh

2022

Preprint

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“…This was recently analyzed for the contribution of a local Canadian entomologist, whose entomological book and article collection is now hosted by the Macdonald Campus Library from McGill University, and includes many titles not found in any other Canadian university library (Waters & MacKenzie 2018). Similarly, amateurs have produced insect collections, sometimes of high scientific value, which may be lost forever unless there is a coordinated effort to register those private collections and find the funding to acquire them and secure their preservation (Fischer et al, 2021).…”

Section: Role Of Non-professionals In the Knowledge Of Insect Diversity Distribution And Taxonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Do amateurs and citizen science fill the gaps left by scientists?

Fontaine

Prévot

2021

Current Opinion in Insect Science

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The diversity of insects is tremendous and so is the effort needed to assess it in order to better understand insect ecology as well as their role for the functioning of ecosystems.While the interest of academics and naturalists for these species has always existed, it is only recently that such interest started to reach society more generally. From insect taxonomy and distribution to the collection of large range and long scale monitoring data, the involvement of non-academics in research outputs is growing. Is this a sign of scientists not being able to meet expectations or of science getting more and more entrenched in society?We argue for the latter, highlighting the opportunities that such involvement of amateurs in insect science represent for insect conservation.

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“…1) To what extent can untargeted citizen science data supplement existing knowledge on butter y diversity obtained through literature to determine the persistence or local extinction of butter ies populations? Unlike literature data, citizen science records are more recent and have seen a signi cant rise in recent years (Fischer et al 2021) offering the possibility of resolving concerns regarding local extinctions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discard butterfly local extinctions through untargeted citizen science: the interplay between species traits and user effort

Tongeren

Sistri

Bonifacino

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The detection of extinctions at local and regional scales in many biodiversity hotspots is often hindered by the lack of long-term monitoring data, and thus relies on time series of occurrence data. Citizen science has repeatedly shown its value in documenting species occurrences, mostly in very recent years. This study investigates the effectiveness of untargeted citizen science records in discarding the possibility of local extinctions in butterfly populations across all Italian National Parks. We addressed three research questions: i) the ability of citizen science data to supplement existing knowledge to complete occurrences time series, ii) the impact of functional traits determining species appearance on data collection, and iii) the interplay between participant engagement and species appearance in the amount of diversity recorded on the iNaturalist platform. Our analysis of 47,356 records (39,929 from literature and 7,427 from iNaturalist) shows that the addition of iNaturalist data fills many recent gaps in occurrence time series, thus reducing the likelihood of potential local extinctions. User effort strongly interacts with species size, distribution, and length of flight periods in determining the frequency of records for individual species. Notably, records from more engaged users encompass a higher fraction of local biodiversity and are more likely to discard local extinctions, and these users are less affected by species size. We also provide updated butterfly checklists for all Italian National Parks and a new R package to calculate potential extinction over time. These results offer guidance for protected areas, conservationists, policymakers, and citizen scientists to optimise monitoring of local populations.

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Decline of Amateur Lepidoptera Collectors Threatens the Future of Specimen-Based Research

Cited by 18 publications

References 30 publications

Synthesis of natural history collections data reveals patterns of US freshwater mussel diversity and decline

Synthesis of natural history collections data reveals patterns of US freshwater mussel diversity and decline

Do amateurs and citizen science fill the gaps left by scientists?

Discard butterfly local extinctions through untargeted citizen science: the interplay between species traits and user effort

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