Racial, ethnic, and social patterns in the recreation specialization of birdwatchers: An analysis of United States eBird registrants

Rutter, Jonathan D.; Dayer, Ashley A.; Harshaw, Howard W.; Cole, Nicholas W.; Duberstein, Jennifer N.; Fulton, David C.; Raedeke, Andrew H.; Schuster, Rudy M.

doi:10.1016/j.jort.2021.100400

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Demographic disparities in participation in citizen science have been documented extensively, including in bird watching (29,30). Citizen science is often predominantly collected by adult, welleducated, white and affluent users (29,30). Simultaneously, sites frequently sampled by citizen science efforts may be in areas of low environmental justice concern (29), which can simultaneously lead to disparate representation of sampling (such as shown in our study).…”

Section: Solution or System Change To Break The Cyclementioning

confidence: 69%

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Uneven biodiversity sampling across redlined urban areas in the United States

Ellis-Soto¹,

Chapman²,

Locke³

2022

Preprint

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Citizen science data has rapidly gained influence in urban ecology and conservation planning, but with limited understanding of how such data reflects social, economic, and political conditions and legacies. Understanding patterns of sampling bias across socioeconomic gradients is critical to accurately map and understand biodiversity patterns, and to generating representative and just environmental knowledge. In this study we explore how historic racially-explicit zoning policies (redlining) relate to biodiversity data collection across and within 195 metropolitan areas in the United States covering >30 million people across 38 states. We specifically look at birds, as they are the most widely studied group of animals, and hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists collect biodiversity data each year. We consistently find uneven bird observation sampling density across redlined areas, with so-called ‘desirable’ areas (i.e. historically white areas) having more than twice the density than areas redlined as ‘hazardous’. We further estimate the degree to which historically redlined areas are surveyed sufficiently and identify regions across all metro areas in need of enhanced bird surveying. After accounting for differences in vegetation, open space, and climate, we find significantly lower sampling density and sampling completeness in these redlined neighborhoods. Our results shed light on the importance of considering socio-political conditions in the interpretation of urban biodiversity estimates. We conclude by discussing specific policy implementations– such as the Justice 40 Initiative and propose a new EPA indicator – and opportunities in collaborating with bottom-up community and social justice organizations for a more representative understanding of biodiversity in urban areas.

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Section: Solution or System Change To Break The Cyclementioning

confidence: 69%

Section: Solution or System Change To Break The Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

Uneven biodiversity sampling across redlined urban areas in the United States

Ellis-Soto¹,

Chapman²,

Locke³

2022

Preprint

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“…To the extent that the “where” of eBird sampling is related to who participates in eBird, racial and income biases in sampling may be a function of a lack of diversity among participants. eBird registrants are overwhelmingly white (94.8%; [ 11 ]). Analysis of participation in a water monitoring CS program, Illinois RiverWatch, provides some evidence for an association between the “who” and the “where” of SSCS sampling [ 10 ]; participants were disproportionately white and affluent and sites in areas of high environmental justice concern were under sampled.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…by trained experts) are likely to plague volunteer, user-gathered data as well [7]. This may yield socioeconomic, gender, and racial biases in who collects the data and uses the platforms [9][10][11], where users go to collect data [10,12,13], and consequently the representativeness of these datasets, particularly for historically marginalized communities [8,13,14]. The extent of sample selection bias in large, user-submitted data platforms remains largely unexplored (but see [13,14]), but may pose particular challenges for open, semi-structured data platforms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The extent of sample selection bias in large, user-submitted data platforms remains largely unexplored (but see [ 13 , 14 ]), but may pose particular challenges for open, semi-structured data platforms. This paper aims to assess how sample selection bias may affect studies using eBird, one of the largest crowdsourced platforms for biodiversity sampling [ 11 ], to analyze disparities in access to urban biodiversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating the use of semi-structured crowdsourced data to quantify inequitable access to urban biodiversity: A case study with eBird

Grade

Chan²,

Gajbhiye³

et al. 2022

PLoS ONE

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Credibly estimating social-ecological relationships requires data with broad coverage and fine geographic resolutions that are not typically available from standard ecological surveys. Open and unstructured data from crowdsourced platforms offer an opportunity for collecting large quantities of user-submitted ecological data. However, the representativeness of the areas sampled by these data portals is not well known. We investigate how data availability in eBird, one of the largest and most popular crowdsourced science platforms, correlates with race and income of census tracts in two cities: Boston, MA and Phoenix, AZ. We find that checklist submissions vary greatly across census tracts, with similar patterns within both metropolitan regions. In particular, census tracts with high income and high proportions of white residents are most likely to be represented in the data in both cities, which indicates selection bias in eBird coverage. Our results illustrate the non-representativeness of eBird data, and they also raise deeper questions about the validity of statistical inferences regarding disparities that can be drawn from such datasets. We discuss these challenges and illustrate how sample selection problems in unstructured or semi-structured crowdsourced data can lead to spurious conclusions regarding the relationships between race, income, and access to urban bird biodiversity. While crowdsourced data are indispensable and complementary to more traditional approaches for collecting ecological data, we conclude that unstructured or semi-structured data may not be well-suited for all lines of inquiry, particularly those requiring consistent data coverage, and should thus be handled with appropriate care.

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Risk of invasive waterfowl interaction with poultry production: Understanding potential for avian pathogen transmission via species distribution models

Jackson,

Marshall,

Burkhart

et al. 2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza have devastated poultry production across the United States, with more than 77 million birds culled in 2022–2024 alone. Wild waterfowl, including various invasive species, host numerous pathogens, including highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV), and have been implicated as catalysts of disease outbreaks among native fauna and domestic birds. In major poultry‐producing states like Arkansas, USA, where the poultry sector is responsible for significant economic activity (>$4 billion USD in 2022), understanding the risk of invasive waterfowl interactions with domestic poultry is critical. Here, we assessed the risk of invasive waterfowl‐poultry interaction in Arkansas by comparing the density of poultry production sites (chicken houses) to areas of high habitat suitability for two invasive waterfowl species, (Egyptian Goose [Alopochen aegyptiaca] and Mute Swan [Cygnus olor]), known to host significant pathogens, including avian influenza viruses. The percentage of urban land cover was the most important habitat characteristic for both invasive waterfowl species. At the 95% confidence interval, chicken house densities in areas highly suitable for both species (Egyptian Goose = 0.91 ± 0.11 chicken houses/km2; Mute Swan = 0.61 ± 0.03 chicken houses/km2) were three to five times higher than chicken house densities across the state (0.17 ± 0.01 chicken houses/km2). We show that northwestern and western Arkansas, both areas of high importance for poultry production, are also at high risk of invasive waterfowl presence. Our results suggest that targeted monitoring efforts for waterfowl‐poultry contact in these areas could help mitigate the risk of avian pathogen exposure in Arkansas and similar regions with high poultry production.

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Racial, ethnic, and social patterns in the recreation specialization of birdwatchers: An analysis of United States eBird registrants

Cited by 17 publications

References 44 publications

Uneven biodiversity sampling across redlined urban areas in the United States

Uneven biodiversity sampling across redlined urban areas in the United States

Evaluating the use of semi-structured crowdsourced data to quantify inequitable access to urban biodiversity: A case study with eBird

Risk of invasive waterfowl interaction with poultry production: Understanding potential for avian pathogen transmission via species distribution models

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