Using community photography to investigate phenology: A case study of coat molt in the mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) with missing data.

ABSTRACT: Participatory approaches, such as community photography, can engage the public in questions of societal and scientific interest while helping advance understanding of ecological patterns and processes. We combined data extracted from community-sourced, spatially explicit photographs with research findings from 2018 fieldwork in the Yukon, Canada, to evaluate winter coat molt patterns and phenology in mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), a cold-adapted, alpine mammal. Leveraging the community science portals iNaturalist and CitSci, in less than a year we amassed a database of almost seven hundred unique photographs spanning some 4,500 km between latitudes 37.6°N and 61.1°N from 0 to 4,333 m elevation. Using statistical methods accounting for incomplete data, a common issue in commun

SUBMITTER: Nowak K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7713987 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature