Citizen science offers significant innovation potential in science, society and policy. To foster environmental and conservation goals, citizen science can (i) generate new knowledge, (ii) enhance ...awareness raising and facilitate in-depth learning as well as (iii) enable civic participation. Here, we investigate how these aims are realised in citizen science projects and assess needs and challenges for advancing citizen science and stimulating future initiatives. To this end, we conducted a quantitative, web-based survey with 143 experts from the environmental and educational sector in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Our findings show that citizen science project managers pursue goals related to all three areas of potential impact. Interestingly, enabling civic participation was considered slightly less important in relation to generating new knowledge and creating learning opportunities. Different areas of necessary action emerge from our analysis. To fully realize the potential of citizen science for generating knowledge, priority should be given to enhance capacities to more effectively share research results with the scientific community through publication, also in scientific journals. Systematic evaluation is needed to gain a better understanding of citizen science learning outcomes, for which criteria need to be developed. Fostering project formats that allow participants to get involved in the whole research process – from posing the study question to implementing results – could enhance the transformative aspect of citizen science at a societal level. Important structural aspects that need to be addressed include adjustments in funding schemes, facilitation of communication between citizens and academia-based scientists, and offers for training, guidance and networking.
•Citizen science can foster environmental goals in three ways.•We surveyed 143 experts from the environmental and educational sectors.•Capacities for peer-reviewed publishing of citizen science findings need enhancement.•Structures for networking and guidance are highly relevant for citizen science.•Systematic evaluation is needed to assess citizen science learning outcomes.
To avoid the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in early 2020, many countries have implemented strict lockdown measures for several weeks. In Austria, the lockdown in early spring has led to a ...significant drop in human outdoor activities, especially in road traffic. In Project Roadkill, a citizen science project which aims to collect data on road-killed animals, we observed a significant decrease in reported roadkills.
By asking the citizen scientists through a survey how their travelling routines were affected, we investigated if the observed decrease in roadkills was grounded in less animals being killed by traffic, or in citizen scientists staying at home and thus reporting less road-killed animals.
A majority of the respondents stated that they felt to have reported less roadkills during the lockdown, regardless if they changed their travelling routine or not. This observation in combination with the overall decrease in road traffic indicates that fewer animals were killed during the lockdown. We conclude that when analyzing citizen science data, the effects of lockdown measures on reporting behaviour should be considered, because they can significantly affect data and interpretation of these data.
The Spanish Slug (Arion vulgaris, formerly known as Arion lusitanicus) is an invasive agricultural and horticultural pest species that causes great damages all over Europe. Numerous options to ...control this slug are on the market; among the most commonly used are slug pellets containing the active ingredients metaldehyde or iron-III-phosphate and the application of parasitic nematodes (Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita). These control measures potentially also affect non-target organisms like earthworms (Lumbricidae), which themselves can directly and/or indirectly alter a plant's susceptibility against slug herbivory. Also, the efficacy of slug control treatments is expected to be influenced by watering. In a greenhouse experiment we investigated the influence of daily watering vs. every third day watering on slug control efficacy and potential interactions with earthworms. We found significant interactions between watering and slug control efficacy. Slug herbivory and biomass decreased after application of slug pellets; metaldehyde was more effective under less frequent watering while iron-III-phosphate was unaffected by watering. Parasitic nematodes had no effect on slug herbivory and biomass production. Earthworm activity was reduced with less frequent watering but did not interact with slug control. We conclude that watering patterns should be considered when choosing slug control measures.
Abstract
Data on road-killed animals is essential for assessing the impact of roads on biodiversity. In most European countries data on road-killed huntable wildlife exists, but data on other ...vertebrate species (e.g. amphibians, reptiles, small mammals) is scarce. Therefore, we conducted a citizen science project on road-killed vertebrates as a useful supplement to data on huntable wildlife collected by public authorities. The dataset contains 15198 reports with 17163 individual road-killed vertebrates collected by 912 participants. The reports were made in 44 countries, but the majority of data was reported in Austria. We implemented a data validation routine which led to three quality levels. Reports in quality level 1 are published via GBIF, reports in quality level 2 via Zenodo and reports in quality level 3 were deleted. The dataset is relevant for the scientific community studying impacts of roads on fauna as well as for those who are responsible for road planning and implementing mitigation measures.
Habitat fragmentation is one of the drivers for amphibian population declines globally. Especially in industrialized countries roads disrupt the seasonal migration of amphibians between hibernation ...and reproduction sites, often ending in roadkills. Thus, a timely installing of temporary mitigation measures is important for amphibian conservation. We wanted to find out if plant phenology can be a proxy in advance to determine the start of amphibian migration, since both phenomena are triggered by temperature. We analysed data of 3751 amphibian and 7818 plant phenology observations from citizen science projects in Austria between 2000 and 2018. Using robust regression modelling we compared the migration of common toads (Bufo bufo) and common frogs (Rana temporaria) with the phenology of five tree, one shrub, and one herb species. Results showed close associations between the migration of common frogs and phenological phases of European larch, goat willow and apricot. Models based on goat willow predict migration of common frog to occur 21 days after flowering, when flowering was observed on 60th day of year; apricot based models predict migration to occur 1 day after flowering, observed on the 75th day of year. Common toads showed weaker associations with plant phenology than common frogs. Our findings suggest that plant phenology can be used to determine the onset of temporary mitigation measures for certain amphibian species to prevent roadkills.
The Spanish slug (Arion vulgaris, also known as A. lusitanicus) is considered one of the most invasive species in agriculture, horticulture and private gardens all over Europe. Although this slug has ...been problematic for decades, there is still not much known about its occurrence across private gardens and the underlying meteorological and ecological factors. One reason for this knowledge gap is the limited access of researchers to private gardens. Here we used a citizen science approach to overcome this obstacle and examined whether the occurrence of Arionidae in Austrian gardens was associated with meteorological (air temperature, precipitation, global solar radiation, relative humidity) or ecological factors (plant diversity, earthworm activity). Occurrence of the invasive A. vulgaris versus the similar-looking native A. rufus was compared using a DNA-barcoding approach.
Slugs were collected from 1061 gardens from the dry Pannonian lowland to the wet alpine climate (altitudinal range 742 m). Slug abundance in gardens was best explained and negatively associated with the parameters "sum of the mean air temperature in spring", "number of frost days in the previous winter" and "mean daily global solar radiation on the day of data collection". Precipitation, plant diversity and earthworm activity were also related to slug abundance, but positively. Out of our genetic sampling of collected slugs, 92% belonged to A. vulgaris.
Our study showed that citizen science (i) is a feasible approach to record species occurrence in restricted areas across a wide geographical range and (ii) could be more widely employed in order to identify underlying environmental factors of species occurrence.
Citizen Science in Austria Dörler, Daniel; Heigl, Florian
Mitteilungen der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen & Bibliothekare,
08/2019, Letnik:
72, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Citizen Science, the active involvement of lay people without any academic education in the scientific process, has experienced a massive increase in academic fields and projects in the last years. ...This active involvement can be designed in many different ways, which is often project and context specific. The popularity of citizen science goes hand in hand with the discussion about open science, and in fact both concepts are deeply connected with each other in many ways. Whereas in open science lay people don’t have to be involved in a project necessarily, citizen science often uses open science methods and tools to make this active involvement possible. In this text, we will give a short introduction to citizen science, its connections to open science, and the developments of citizen science in Austria in the last years and in the future?
The invasive Spanish slug (
Arion vulgaris
) is an important pest species in agriculture and horticulture in Europe. In the last decades it has spread across the continent where it outcompetes native ...slug and snail species, thus posing a threat for biodiversity. A popular anecdote suggests to promote Roman snails (
Helix pomatia
) in gardens because they are able to control
A. vulgaris
. We examined a potential interrelationship between these two species using a mesocosm experiment with lettuce plants.
13
C-
15
N stable isotope labelling of lettuce allowed us to investigate interactions between
Helix
and
Arion
on weight gain/loss and herbivory. Additionally, we wanted to know whether different watering regimes (daily vs. every 3rd day watering of weekly amount) and earthworms alter these interactions. Egg predation of
Helix
on
Arion
eggs was further tested in a food-choice experiment.
Arion
showed a five times higher herbivory per body mass than
Helix
in a single-species setting. However, in mesocosms containing both species percentage of herbivory per body mass was significantly lower than in
Arion
-only mesocosms, especially when watered every three days. Overall isotope uptake via eaten lettuce was unaffected by the presence of the other species. Only very little predation (three out of 200 eggs) of
Helix
on
Arion
eggs was observed. Our results provide no evidence for a clear dismissal or confirmation of the popular gardener’s anecdote that
Helix
snails have a negative effect on
Arion
abundance or herbivory.
Toward an international definition of citizen science Heigl, Florian; Kieslinger, Barbara; Paul, Katharina T. ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
04/2019, Letnik:
116, Številka:
17
Journal Article
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