Determinants of Bird Species Literacy—Activity/Interest and Specialization Are More Important Than Socio-Demographic Variables

Abstract

Biodiversity is declining, and knowledge about biodiversity declines in a similar way. Previous studies have already addressed predictors of species knowledge. Here, we studied bird species knowledge related to demographics, but also to individual differences in affinity to nature, by including (i) birding specialization and (ii) bird-related activities/interest. Data were collected from July to October 2020 via an online questionnaire, containing demographic data, birding specialization, interest/activity, and images of 28 bird species native to Germany. Participants were adult students, lecturers and administrative staff of the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen. A total of 1967 questionnaires were returned in this study (35.3% male, 53.8% students, 69% had access to a garden). Mean identification score was 16.31 ± 6.38. Thus, participants were able to identify more than half of the species (total species n = 28). Men identified more species than women, garden owners had higher identification scores than non-owners, while hometown size was not significant. A distance to the next forest patch >10 km was related to lower identification scores. Employees scored higher than students. Correlation between species knowledge and birding specialization was high, as was the correlation with bird interest/activity. Higher scores were found in older people. In the linear univariate model, birding specialization and bird interest were the most influential predictors of species knowledge, followed by distance to next forest patch and occupation (student vs employees). Other variables were not significant. We suggest including such measures (interest, attitude, etc.) into further studies and move forward from the urban–rural narrative to more complex analyses of living circumstances.

Leaders Inspiring the Next Generation of Citizen Scientists – An Analysis of the Predictors of Leadership in Birding

“…Numerous studies have addressed the factor structure of the birding specialization questionnaires and the measurement model used here seems well established (Lee and Scott, 2004). Furthermore, Randler and Heil (2021) showed that people who assessed their bird knowledge higher in the questionnaire similarly performed better in a subsequent cognitive test where they had to identify different bird species (r = 0.7). This adds to the quality of the questionnaire.…”

Robin Who? Bird Species Knowledge of German Adults

“…Concerning the parameters tested in our survey, species knowledge increases with age. In almost all other studies, age was also a significant predictor of species knowledge [ 38 ], but species knowledge does not simply increase with life experience; it also decreases when comparing age cohorts of different times. In the year 2007, German pupils scored 15% more points on a same-species identification test than they did in a follow-up study a decade later [ 20 , 21 ], for multiple possible reasons.…”

“…This disconnection seems to have only a small influence on bird species knowledge as other surveys observed even slightly better bird species knowledge in the group of urban citizens [ 21 ] or no significant influence of the hometown’s number of inhabitants at all [ 19 , 20 ]. Another study found hometown sizes not relevant, but a distance >10 km to the next forest patch was correlated with a lower identification score [ 38 ]. Although we did not test the species knowledge of different indigenous groups, our results might support the presumption that members of post-industrial societies have less knowledge of nature than members of indigenous communities [ 41 ].…”

Are Lay People Able to Estimate Breeding Bird Diversity?

“…The question of estimated bird species richness at the respective place was based on a categorical scale containing nine categories (0–5; 6–10; 11–20; 21–30; 31–40; 41–50; 51–60; 61–70; over 70 species present; scale adapted after Ferraro, et al [ 34 ] and Southon, et al [ 35 ]). We also asked about birding specialization based on how many bird species participants can recognize by appearance without help from books or apps [ 36 ]. In addition, some demographic variables were asked for: age in years, gender (male, female, diverse), and graduation (university degree, coded dichotomous “yes or no” with “yes” meaning at least a bachelor’s degree).…”

“…As demographic effects may have an influence on bird species knowledge [ 36 ], we analyzed the estimated species richness with respect to age, gender, self-reported birding skill level, and university degree.…”