scholarly journals An Urban Biodiversity Assessment Framework That Combines an Urban Habitat Classification Scheme and Citizen Science Data

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enjie Li ◽  
Sophie S. Parker ◽  
Gregory B. Pauly ◽  
John M. Randall ◽  
Brian V. Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Classification Scheme ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Urban Habitat ◽  
Biodiversity Assessment ◽  
Assessment Framework ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Habitat Classification

scholarly journals A citizen science approach to evaluating US cities for biotic homogenization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misha Leong ◽  
Michelle D Trautwein
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Biotic Homogenization ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Urban Intensification ◽  
The City ◽  
Us Cities

Cities around the world have converged on structural and environmental characteristics that exert similar eco-evolutionary pressures on local communities. However, evaluating how urban biodiversity responds to urban intensification remains poorly understood because of the challenges in capturing the diversity of a range of taxa within and across multiple cities from different types of urbanization. Here we utilize a growing resource—citizen science data. We analyzed 66,209 observations representing 5,209 species generated by the City Nature Challenge project on the iNaturalist platform, in conjunction with remote sensing (NLCD2011) environmental data, to test for urban biotic homogenization at increasing levels of urban intensity across 14 metropolitan cities in the United States. Based on community composition analyses, we found that while similarities occur to an extent, urban biodiversity is often much more a reflection of the taxa living locally in a region. At the same time, the communities found in high intensity development were less explained by regional context than communities from other land cover types were. We also found that the most commonly observed species are often shared between cities and are non-endemic and/or have a distribution facilitated by humans. This study highlights the value of citizen science data in answering questions in urban ecology.

scholarly journals A citizen science approach to evaluating US cities for biotic homogenization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misha Leong ◽  
Michelle D Trautwein
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Regional Specificity ◽  
Urban Intensification ◽  
The City ◽  
Us Cities

Background. Cities around the world have converged on structural and environmental characteristics that exert similar eco-evolutionary pressures on local communities. However, evaluating how urban biodiversity responds to urban intensification remains poorly understood because of the challenges in capturing the diversity of a range of taxa within and across multiple cities from different types of urbanization. Methods. Here we utilize a growing resource—citizen science data. We analyzed 66,209 observations representing 5,209 species generated by the City Nature Challenge project on the iNaturalist platform, in conjunction with remote sensing (NLCD2011) environmental data, to test for urban homogenization at increasing levels of urban intensity across 14 metropolitan cities in the United States. Results. Based on community composition analyses, we found that while urban homogenization occurs to an extent, urban biodiversity is often much more a reflection of the regional specificity of taxa. On the other hand, we also found that the most commonly observed species are often shared between cities and are non-endemic and/or have a distribution facilitated by humans. This study highlights the value of citizen science data in answering questions in urban ecology.

scholarly journals A citizen science approach to evaluating US cities for biotic homogenization

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misha Leong ◽  
Michelle Trautwein
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Biotic Homogenization ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Urban Intensification ◽  
The City ◽  
Us Cities

Cities around the world have converged on structural and environmental characteristics that exert similar eco-evolutionary pressures on local communities. However, evaluating how urban biodiversity responds to urban intensification remains poorly understood because of the challenges in capturing the diversity of a range of taxa within and across multiple cities from different types of urbanization. Here we utilize a growing resource—citizen science data. We analyzed 66,209 observations representing 5,209 species generated by the City Nature Challenge project on the iNaturalist platform, in conjunction with remote sensing (NLCD2011) environmental data, to test for urban biotic homogenization at increasing levels of urban intensity across 14 metropolitan cities in the United States. Based on community composition analyses, we found that while similarities occur to an extent, urban biodiversity is often much more a reflection of the taxa living locally in a region. At the same time, the communities found in high-intensity development were less explained by regional context than communities from other land cover types were. We also found that the most commonly observed species are often shared between cities and are non-endemic and/or have a distribution facilitated by humans. This study highlights the value of citizen science data in answering questions in urban ecology.

scholarly journals Capitalizing on opportunistic citizen science data to monitor urban biodiversity: a multi-taxa framework

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Thomas Callaghan ◽  
Ian Ozeroff ◽  
Colleen Hitchcock ◽  
Mark Chandler
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Native Species ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Metropolitan Region ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Biological Community ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Broad Scale

Monitoring urban biodiversity is increasingly important, given the increasing anthropogenic pressures on biodiversity in urban areas. While the cost of broad-scale monitoring by professionals may be prohibitive, citizen science (also referred to as community science) will likely play an important role in understanding biodiversity responses to urbanization into the future. Here, we present a framework that relies on broad-scale citizen science data –– collected through iNaturalist –– to quantify (1) species-specific responses to urbanization on a continuous scale, capitalizing on globally-available VIIRS night-time lights data; and (2) community-level measures of the urbanness of a given biological community that can be aggregated to any spatial unit relevant for policy-decisions. We demonstrate the potential utility of this framework in the Boston metropolitan region, using > 1,000 species aggregated across 87 towns throughout the region. Of the most common species, our species-specific urbanness measures highlighted the expected difference between native and non-native species. Further, our biological community-level urbanness measures –– aggregated by towns –– negatively correlated with enhanced vegetation indices within a town and positively correlated with the area of impervious surface within a town. We conclude by demonstrating how towns can be ‘ranked’ promoting a framework where towns can be compared based on whether they over- or under-perform in the urbanness of their community relative to other towns. Ultimately, biodiversity conservation in urban environments will best succeed with robust, repeatable, and interpretable measures of biodiversity responses to urbanization, and involving the broader public in the derivation and tracking of these responses will likely result in increased bioliteracy and conservation awareness.

scholarly journals Capitalizing on opportunistic citizen science data to monitor urban biodiversity: A multi-taxa framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 251 ◽  
pp. 108753
Author(s):  
Corey T. Callaghan ◽  
Ian Ozeroff ◽  
Colleen Hitchcock ◽  
Mark Chandler
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Science Data

scholarly journals A citizen science approach to evaluating US cities for biotic homogenization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misha Leong ◽  
Michelle D Trautwein
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Urban Biodiversity ◽  
Biotic Homogenization ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Urban Intensification ◽  
The City ◽  
Us Cities

Cities around the world have converged on structural and environmental characteristics that exert similar eco-evolutionary pressures on local communities. However, evaluating how urban biodiversity responds to urban intensification remains poorly understood because of the challenges in capturing the diversity of a range of taxa within and across multiple cities from different types of urbanization. Here we utilize a growing resource—citizen science data. We analyzed 66,209 observations representing 5,209 species generated by the City Nature Challenge project on the iNaturalist platform, in conjunction with remote sensing (NLCD2011) environmental data, to test for urban biotic homogenization at increasing levels of urban intensity across 14 metropolitan cities in the United States. Based on community composition analyses, we found that while similarities occur to an extent, urban biodiversity is often much more a reflection of the taxa living locally in a region. At the same time, the communities found in high intensity development were less explained by regional context than communities from other land cover types were. We also found that the most commonly observed species are often shared between cities and are non-endemic and/or have a distribution facilitated by humans. This study highlights the value of citizen science data in answering questions in urban ecology.

scholarly journals The Use of Citizen Science to Achieve Multivariate Management Goals on Public Lands

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Sara Souther ◽  
Vincent Randall ◽  
Nanebah Lyndon
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Suitable Habitat ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Public Land Management ◽  
Federal Land ◽  
Botanical Research ◽  
Federal Land Management

Federal land management agencies in the US are tasked with maintaining the ecological integrity of over 2 million km2 of land for myriad public uses. Citizen science, operating at the nexus of science, education, and outreach, offers unique benefits to address socio-ecological questions and problems, and thus may offer novel opportunities to support the complex mission of public land managers. Here, we use a case study of an iNaturalist program, the Tribal Nations Botanical Research Collaborative (TNBRC), to examine the use of citizen science programs in public land management. The TNBRC collected 2030 observations of 34 plant species across the project area, while offering learning opportunities for participants. Using occurrence data, we examined observational trends through time and identified five species with 50 or fewer digital observations to investigate as species of possible conservation concern. We compared predictive outcomes of habitat suitability models built using citizen science data and Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data. Models exhibited high agreement, identifying the same underlying predictors of species occurrence and, 95% of the time, identifying the same pixels as suitable habitat. Actions such as staff training on data use and interpretation could enhance integration of citizen science in Federal land management.

scholarly journals Abundant Citizen Science Data Reveal That the Peacock Butterfly Aglais io Recently Became Bivoltine in Belgium

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 683
Author(s):  
Marc Herremans ◽  
Karin Gielen ◽  
Jos Van Kerckhoven ◽  
Pieter Vanormelingen ◽  
Wim Veraghtert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Science Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Online Portal ◽  
Spring Generation ◽  
Reproductive Cycles ◽  
New Generation

The peacock butterfly is abundant and widespread in Europe. It is generally believed to be univoltine (one generation per year): adults born in summer overwinter and reappear again in spring to reproduce. However, recent flight patterns in western Europe mostly show three peaks during the year: a first one in spring (overwintering butterflies), a second one in early summer (offspring of the spring generation), and a third one in autumn. It was thus far unclear whether this autumn flight peak was a second new generation or consisted of butterflies flying again in autumn after a summer rest (aestivation). The life cycle of one of Europe’s most common butterflies is therefore still surprisingly inadequately understood. We used hundreds of thousands of observations and thousands of pictures submitted by naturalists from the public to the online portal observation.orgin Belgium and analyzed relations between flight patterns, condition (wear), reproductive cycles, peak abundances, and phenology to clarify the current life history. We demonstrate that peacocks have shifted towards two new generations per year in recent decades. Mass citizen science data in online portals has become increasingly important in tracking the response of biodiversity to rapid environmental changes such as climate change.

scholarly journals A Conceptual Probabilistic Framework for Annotation Aggregation of Citizen Science Data

Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 875
Author(s):  
Jesus Cerquides ◽  
Mehmet Oğuz Mülâyim ◽  
Jerónimo Hernández-González ◽  
Amudha Ravi Shankar ◽  
Jose Luis Fernandez-Marquez
Keyword(s):  
Data Quality ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Graphical Model ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Probabilistic Framework ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Label Aggregation ◽  
Evaluation Of Data ◽  
Model Formalism

Over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have contributed to science by collecting or analyzing data. This public participation in science, also known as citizen science, has contributed to significant discoveries and led to publications in major scientific journals. However, little attention has been paid to data quality issues. In this work we argue that being able to determine the accuracy of data obtained by crowdsourcing is a fundamental question and we point out that, for many real-life scenarios, mathematical tools and processes for the evaluation of data quality are missing. We propose a probabilistic methodology for the evaluation of the accuracy of labeling data obtained by crowdsourcing in citizen science. The methodology builds on an abstract probabilistic graphical model formalism, which is shown to generalize some already existing label aggregation models. We show how to make practical use of the methodology through a comparison of data obtained from different citizen science communities analyzing the earthquake that took place in Albania in 2019.

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