Patterns of contribution to citizen science biodiversity projects increase understanding of volunteers' recording behaviour.

ABSTRACT: The often opportunistic nature of biological recording via citizen science leads to taxonomic, spatial and temporal biases which add uncertainty to biodiversity estimates. However, such biases may also give valuable insight into volunteers' recording behaviour. Using Greater London as a case-study we examined the composition of three citizen science datasets - from Greenspace Information for Greater London CIC, iSpot and iRecord - with respect to recorder contribution and spatial and taxonomic biases, i.e. when, where and what volunteers record. We found most volunteers contributed few records and were active for just one day. Each dataset had its own taxonomic and spatial signature suggesting that volunteers' personal recording preferences may attract them towards particular schemes. Ther

SUBMITTER: Boakes EH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5020317 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature