Decision-making of citizen scientists when recording species observations.

ABSTRACT: Citizen scientists play an increasingly important role in biodiversity monitoring. Most of the data, however, are unstructured-collected by diverse methods that are not documented with the data. Insufficient understanding of the data collection processes presents a major barrier to the use of citizen science data in biodiversity research. We developed a questionnaire to ask citizen scientists about their decision-making before, during and after collecting and reporting species observations, using Germany as a case study. We quantified the greatest sources of variability among respondents and assessed whether motivations and experience related to any aspect of data collection. Our questionnaire was answered by almost 900 people, with varying taxonomic foci and expertise. Respondents were mo

SUBMITTER: Bowler DE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9245884 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature