RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Finding the signal in the Noise of Citizen Science Observations
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 326314
DO 10.1101/326314
A1 Steve Kelling
A1 Alison Johnston
A1 Daniel Fink
A1 Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez
A1 Rick Bonney
A1 Aletta Bonn
A1 Miguel Fernandez
A1 Wesley M. Hochachka
A1 Romain Julliard
A1 Roland Kraemer
A1 Robert Guralnick
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/18/326314.abstract
AB While many observations of species are being collected by citizen science projects worldwide, it can be challenging to identify projects collecting data that effectively monitor biodiversity. Over the past several years the allure of taking a “Big Data” approach has provided the opportunity to gather massive quantities of observations via the Internet, too often with insufficient information to describe how the observations were made. Information about species populations — where and when they occur and how many of them are there — (i.e., the signal) can be lost because insufficient information is gathered to account for the inherent biases in data collection (i.e., the noise). Here we suggest that citizen science projects that have succeeded in motivating large numbers of participants, must consider factors that influence the ecological process that affect species populations as well as the observation process that determines how observations are made. Those citizen science projects that collect sufficient contextual information describing the observation process can be used to generate increasingly accurate information about the distribution and abundance of organisms. We illustrate this using eBird as a case study, describing how this citizen science platform is able to collect vital contextual information on the observation process while maintaining a broad global constituency of participants. We highlight how eBird provides information with which to generate biodiversity indicators — specifically distribution, abundance, and habitat associations — across the entire annual cycle, even for populations of long distance migratory birds, a highly challenging taxon.