A topic that interested me this week was citizen science. This is a concept that has recently increased in popularity, and refers to research projects that rely on volunteers to collect data (Sullivan et al., 2014). I wanted to learn more about how technology has improved the accessibility of citizen science, and how this relates to nature interpretation.
What I found surprised me! Citizen science has a big impact on conservation and scientific research. A review that I read on citizen science in conservation showed that studies relying on volunteers were able to collect data on a wider scale than a research team alone. Technology also makes this research more accessible. Online tools can be used, whether to help connect people to projects that need volunteers, provide online trainings, or allow for easier submission of data (Kobori et al., 2016).
One cool integration of technology and citizen science is the program eBird. This is an app that allows birdwatchers to submit abundance and species counts of birds around the world (Sullivan et al., 2014). I have used eBird before, when I worked with seabird species in Newfoundland for a summer job. It was a fun way for me to learn bird identification, and the app was very easy to use. It was quick and simple to post an observation, so my team and I would post regularly when we were out conducting fieldwork. However, I just thought this was a fun way to start birdwatching. I had no idea how useful this data can be to scientists and conservationists. In a research paper that I read this week, I learned that by 2013, eBird had collected 140 million separate bird observations, by 150,000 volunteers. This data contributed to over 90 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, and these numbers are only growing (Sullivan et al., 2014). Another recent study shows that eBird data, when carefully filtered, provides abundance estimates on species in the United States, such as waterfowl, that are very similar to those collected by government officials in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Stuber et al., 2022). This means that eBird can be used as a reliable source of information, and the data collected could be important for making conservation decisions.
I think that because citizen science is important for research, it is a great tool to use in nature interpretation. It can be offered as a next step for audiences, to take the information they have learned in an interpretive program and use it to contribute to nature conservation. For example, audiences participating in a beginner birding course could be encouraged to download eBird, and start birding more regularly. This builds on the interpretive program by encouraging people to continue to get outside and birdwatch, and allows audiences to intentionally use their new knowledge to make a difference. The improved accessibility of citizen science, and its direct implications on conservation decisions, make it a valuable way for audiences to engage with their environment and take interpretation to the next level.
Some bird observations that I made in Newfoundland and posted to eBird.
Kobori, H., Dickinson, J. L., Washitani, I., Sakurai, R., Amano, T., Komatsu, N., Kitamura, W., Takagawa, S., Koyama, K., Ogawara, T., & Miller-Rushing, A. J. (2016). Citizen science: a new approach to advance ecology, education, and conservation. Ecological Research, 31(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-015-1314-y
Stuber, E. F., Robinson, O. J., Bjerre, E. R., Otto, M. C., Millsap, B. A., Zimmerman, G. S., Brasher, M. G., Ringelman, K. M., Fournier, A. M. V., Yetter, A., Isola, J. E., & Ruiz-Gutierrez, V. (2022). The potential of semi-structured citizen science data as a supplement for conservation decision-making: Validating the performance of eBird against targeted avian monitoring efforts. Biological Conservation, 270. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109556
Sullivan, B. L., Aycrigg, J. L., Barry, J. H., Bonney, R. E., Bruns, N., Cooper, C. B., Damoulas, T., Dhondt, A. A., Dietterich, T., Farnsworth, A., Fink, D., Fitzpatrick, J. W., Fredericks, T., Gerbracht, J., Gomes, C., Hochachka, W. M., Iliff, M. J., Lagoze, C., La Sorte, F. A., … Kelling, S. (2014). The eBird enterprise: An integrated approach to development and application of citizen science. In Biological Conservation (Vol. 169). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2013.11.003