Citizen science and roadkills: trends along project lifespan and comparison of tropical and temperate projects
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22458/urj.v10i1.2042Keywords:
road mortality, road ecology, community, volunteers, online databaseAbstract
The collection of scientific data by people without a science degree is at least as old as Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, but thanks to smartphones it now involves large numbers of volunteers, leading to studies about who the so called “citizen scientists” are, how they behave, and how to improve their work. There are, however, no worldwide studies about citizen science projects reporting fauna killed in road collisions. Here we analyze data from the 31 projects available in September 2017 in iNaturalist.org, the largest website for this subject. The USA and Europe have the most projects, but after correcting for population size, countries like Costa Rica and Canada are outstanding, possibly thanks to widespread Internet access and high educational levels. Projects had a mean of 431 observations, 48 species, of 32 volunteers who, on average, posted 19 observations each. Most volunteers contributed few records and were active only briefly. The roadkill data shows that, in the tropics, seasonal mortality trends match the movement of animals in search of water for drinking and for reproduction, while in temperate sites project differences depended mostly on which particular species is studied. We recommend future consideration of how the behavior of volunteers and projects changes along time, a subject that has seldom been considered in previous studiesReferences
Aceves-Bueno, E., Adeleye, A. S., Feraud, M., Huang, Y., Tao, M., Yang, Y., & Anderson, S. E. (2017). The Accuracy of Citizen Science Data: A Quantitative Review. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 98, 278–290. doi:10.1002/bes2.1336
Arévalo, J. E., Honda, W., Arce-Arias, A., & Häger, A. (2017). Spatio-temporal variation of roadkills show mass mortality events for amphibians in a highly trafficked road adjacent to a national park, Costa Rica. Revista de Biología Tropical, 65(4), 1261-1276.
Ballard, H. L., Robinson, L. D., Young, A. N., Pauly, G. B., Higgins, L. M., Johnson, R. F., & Tweddle, J. C. (2017). Contributions to conservation outcomes by natural history museum-led citizen science: examining evidence and next steps. Biological Conservation, 208, 87-97.
Bonney, R., Cooper, C. B., Dickinson, J., Kelling, S., Phillips, T., Rosenberg, K. V., & Shirk, J. (2009). Citizen science: a developing tool for expanding science knowledge and scientific literacy. BioScience, 59(11), 977-984.
Carvalho, F., & Mira, A. (2011). Comparing annual vertebrate road kills over two time periods, 9 years apart: a case study in Mediterranean farmland. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 57(1), 157-174.
Chandler, M., See, L., Copas, K., Bonde, A. M., López, B. C., Danielsen, F., ... & Rosemartin, A. (2017). Contribution of citizen science towards international biodiversity monitoring. Biological Conservation, 213, 280-294.
Conard, J. M., & Gipson, P. S. (2006). Spatial and seasonal variation in wildlife-vehicle collisions. Prairie Naturalist, 38(4), 251.
Cunha, D. G., Marques, J. F., Resende, J. C., Falco, P. B., Souza, C. M., & Loiselle, S. A. (2017). Citizen science participation in research in the environmental sciences: key factors related to projects’ success and longevity. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências, 89(3), 2229-2245.
da Rosa, C. A., & Bager, A. (2012). Seasonality and habitat types affect roadkill of neotropical birds. Journal of Environmental Management, 97, 1-5.Dickinson, J. L., Shirk, J., Bonter, D., Bonney, R., Crain, R. L., Martin, J., ... & Purcell, K. (2012). The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagement. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 10(6), 291-297.
Dickinson, J. L., Zuckerberg, B., & Bonter, D. N. (2010). Citizen science as an ecological research tool: challenges and benefits. Annual review of ecology, evolution, and systematics, 41, 149-172.
Eloff, P., & Van Niekerk, A. (2008). Temporal patterns of animal-related traffic accidents in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. South African Journal of Wildlife Research, 38(2), 153-162.
Eveleigh, A., Jennett, C., Blandford, A., Brohan, P., & Cox, A. L. (2014, April). Designing for dabblers and deterring drop-outs in citizen science. In Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 2985-2994). ACM.
Fleur, N. St. (2017, April 23). Rattled by Trump Policies, Scientists Take to Streets. New York Times, pp. A25.
Gardiner, M. M., Allee, L. L., Brown, P. M., Losey, J. E., Roy, H. E., & Smyth, R. R. (2012). Lessons from lady beetles: accuracy of monitoring data from US and UK citizen‐science programs. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 10(9), 471-476.
Gest, H. (2004). The discovery of microorganisms by Robert Hooke and Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek, fellows of the Royal Society. Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 58(2), 187-201.
Gommerman, L., & Monroe, M. C. (2012). Lessons learned from evaluations of citizen science programs. Gainesville, FL: School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida.
McKinley, D. C., Miller-Rushing, A. J., Ballard, H. L., Bonney, R., Brown, H., Cook-Patton, S. C., ... & Ryan, S. F. (2017). Citizen science can improve conservation science, natural resource management, and environmental protection. Biological Conservation, 208, 15-28.
Newman, G., Chandler, M., Clyde, M., McGreavy, B., Haklay, M., Ballard, H., ... & Gallo, J. (2017). Leveraging the power of place in citizen science for effective conservation decision making. Biological Conservation, 208, 55-64
Psacharopoulos, G., & Patrinos, H. A. (2004). Returns to investment in education: a further update. Education economics, 12(2), 111-134.
Ratton, P., Secco, H., & Da Rosa, C. A. (2014). Carcass permanency time and its implications to the roadkill data. European journal of wildlife research, 60(3), 543-546.
Reed, J., Van Vianen, J., Deakin, E. L., Barlow, J., & Sunderland, T. (2016). Integrated landscape approaches to managing social and environmental issues in the tropics: learning from the past to guide the future. Global change biology, 22(7), 2540-2554. doi:10.1111/gcb.13284
Rotman, D., Preece, J., Hammock, J., Procita, K., Hansen, D., Parr, C., ... & Jacobs, D. (2012, February). Dynamic changes in motivation in collaborative citizen-science projects. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on computer supported cooperative work (pp. 217-226). ACM.
Smith-Patten, B. D., & Patten, M. A. (2008). Diversity, seasonality, and context of mammalian roadkills in the southern Great Plains. Environmental Management, 41(6), 844-852.
Additional Files
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Note: This abstract contains an incorrect copyright due to technical issues. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms: Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal
All journal contents are freely available through a CC BY 4.0 license.
CC BY 4.0 is a Creative Commons: you can copy, modify, distribute, and perform, even for commercial reasons, without asking permission, if you give appropriate credit.
Contents can be reproduced if the source and copyright are acknowledged according to the Open Access license CC BY 4.0. Self-storage in preprint servers and repositories is allowed for all versions. We encourage authors to publish raw data and data logs in public repositories and to include the links with all drafts so that reviewers and readers can consult them at any time.
The journal is financed by public funds via Universidad Estatal a Distancia and editorial independence and ethical compliance are guaranteed by the Board of Editors, UNED. We do not publish paid ads or receive funds from companies.