Identifying and correcting spatial bias in opportunistic citizen science data for wild ungulates in Norway.

ABSTRACT: Many publications make use of opportunistic data, such as citizen science observation data, to infer large-scale properties of species' distributions. However, the few publications that use opportunistic citizen science data to study animal ecology at a habitat level do so without accounting for spatial biases in opportunistic records or using methods that are difficult to generalize. In this study, we explore the biases that exist in opportunistic observations and suggest an approach to correct for them. We first examined the extent of the biases in opportunistic citizen science observations of three wild ungulate species in Norway by comparing them to data from GPS telemetry. We then quantified the extent of the biases by specifying a model of the biases. From the bias model, we sampled

SUBMITTER: Cretois B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8571602 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature