Explaining Spatial Variation in the Recording Effort of Citizen Science Data across Multiple Taxa.

ABSTRACT: The collation of citizen science data in open-access biodiversity databases makes temporally and spatially extensive species' observation data available to a wide range of users. Such data are an invaluable resource but contain inherent limitations, such as sampling bias in favour of recorder distribution, lack of survey effort assessment, and lack of coverage of the distribution of all organisms. Any technical assessment, monitoring program or scientific research applying citizen science data should therefore include an evaluation of the uncertainty of its results. We use 'ignorance' scores, i.e. spatially explicit indices of sampling bias across a study region, to further understand spatial patterns of observation behaviour for 13 reference taxonomic groups. The data is based on voluntar

SUBMITTER: Mair L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4731209 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature