Tradeoffs of using place-based community science for urban biodiversity monitoring
Tradeoffs of using place-based community science for urban biodiversity monitoring
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DOI：
10.1111/csp2.338
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发表时间：
2021-01-14
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Reed, Sarah E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jimenez, Miguel F.;Pejchar, Liba;Reed, Sarah E.
社区科学，即招募志愿者收集生物多样性数据，现在很常见，也很普遍。从理论上讲，这种模式的好处是互补的：社区科学项目产生有用的数据集，同时让公众参与保护。然而，在实践中，可能会有关于数据质量、经济成本和公众参与的权衡，这些很少被量化。为了评估项目结构和相对产出，我们评估了与(A)雇用付费技术人员或(B)招募社区科学志愿者为城市生物多样性项目收集鸟类和蝴蝶数据相关的权衡。我们发现数据质量的结果好坏参半；技术人员和社区科学家检测到人类适应的物种的概率相似，但社区科学家不太可能检测到人类敏感的物种，并夸大了人类适应的鸟类的数量。五个物种中有四个的栖息地使用估计在两个数据集之间是可比的，尽管社区科学数据的不确定性更大。社区科学家在经济成本方面效率更高，每工作小时生产1.5倍的鸟和两倍多的蝴蝶调查和检测。社区科学家提高了他们识别当地物种的能力(鸟类增加了16%；蝴蝶增加了31%)。最后，社区科学家报告说，在参与监测后，他们对教育或志愿者项目的兴趣增加了，但对采取保护行动的兴趣增加的可能性较小。为了提高数据质量，我们建议培训的重点是确定人类敏感物种，并在调查期间跟踪同一物种的多个个体。为了促进态度的改变，项目应该专注于招募对保护具有不同先前态度的公众成员。尽管我们证明了一些不足之处，但我们的发现补充了越来越多的文献，这些文献表明，社区科学可以提高科学素养，并有效地产生与技术人员类似质量的数据，特别是对于常见物种。
Community science, the enlisting of volunteers to collect biodiversity data, is now common and widespread. In theory, the benefits of this model are complementary: community science programs produce useful datasets while engaging the public in conservation. However, in practice there may be tradeoffs regarding data quality, economic cost, and public engagement, which are rarely quantified. To assess program structure and relative outputs, we evaluated the tradeoffs associated with (a) employing paid technicians or (b) recruiting community science volunteers to collect bird and butterfly data for an urban biodiversity project. We found mixed results for data quality; the probability of detecting human-adapted species was similar between technicians and community scientists, but community scientists were less likely to detect human-sensitive species and overreported the abundance of human-adapted birds. Habitat use estimates for four out of five species were comparable between the two datasets, although uncertainty was greater for community science data. Community scientists were more efficient in terms of economic cost, producing one and a half times more bird and two times more butterfly surveys and detections per paid work-hour. Community scientists improved their ability to identify local species (birds by 16%; butterflies by 31%). Lastly, community scientists reported an increased interest in educational or volunteer programs after participating in monitoring but were less likely to report an increased interest in taking conservation action. To improve data quality, we recommend that training focus on identifying human-sensitive species and tracking multiple individuals of the same species during surveys. To catalyze changes in attitudes, programs should focus on recruiting members of the public with diverse preexisting attitudes toward conservation. Although we demonstrate some shortcomings, our findings add to a growing body of literature that suggests community science can increase scientific literacy and efficiently produce data of similar quality to technicians, particularly for common species.