The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagement

Abstract

Approaches to citizen science – an indispensable means of combining ecological research with environmental education and natural history observation – range from community‐based monitoring to the use of the internet to “crowd‐source” various scientific tasks, from data collection to discovery. With new tools and mechanisms for engaging learners, citizen science pushes the envelope of what ecologists can achieve, both in expanding the potential for spatial ecology research and in supplementing existing, but localized, research programs. The primary impacts of citizen science are seen in biological studies of global climate change, including analyses of phenology, landscape ecology, and macro‐ecology, as well as in sub‐disciplines focused on species (rare and invasive), disease, populations, communities, and ecosystems. Citizen science and the resulting ecological data can be viewed as a public good that is generated through increasingly collaborative tools and resources, while supporting public participation in science and Earth stewardship.

Conservation of the Ethiopian church forests: Threats, opportunities and implications for their management

“…Finally, and very importantly, forest management has to be supported by environmental education (Keane et al 2011), community-based monitoring (Dickinson et al 2012) and other forms of public engagement required for conservation planning for multiple stakeholders (Githiru and Lens 2007;Denier et al 2015). These may be supported by payment for ecosystem services schemes (Petheram and Campbell 2010;Amare et al 2016;Deng et al 2016; but see Poudyal et al 2016).…”

Conceptual Frameworks and Methods for Advancing Invasion Ecology

“…Unfortunately, the collection of long-term data is often hampered by difficulties to acquire funding for more than a few years. Citizen science has proven useful to gather large amounts of data, with a spatial and temporal coverage that would be hard to achieve for individual research teams (Dickinson et al 2012). More citizen Fig.…”

“…Nisbet et al 2010 for similar recommendations to enhance communication regarding climate change research). Websites can also be setup for citizen science approaches where volunteers can post the observations of alien species on a website (Dickinson et al 2012; http://www.waarnemingen.be). Websites and apps of networks that connect science and policy can be very helpful as well, e.g., the Network-Forum for Biodiversity Research Germany (NeFo, http://www.biodiversity.de).…”

Cook Inlet beluga whale, Delphinapterus leucas, observations near Anchorage between 2008 and 2011: results from a citizen scientist project

“…Dickinson et al (2012) lists various uses for citizen science by professional ecologists ranging from areas of research such as landscape ecology and climate change to fi nding rare organisms, tracking movements, and detecting species declines.…”