Nature

Wild About Citizen Science

The herbarium label on my screen is dated 1932. The hand-writing is faded, but if I zoom in, I can make out the necessary information. Carefully, I type the requested data into the online fields, making sure the place names are spelled correctly before moving onto the next sample. 

I’ve never been to Alaska. Or Greenland. Or Newfoundland where most of these plant specimens were collected. Nonetheless, I’ve been spending time every evening, logged into a site called Zooniverse, where I transcribe data from herbarium labels for the Canadian Museum of Nature as part of a project called Expedition Arctic Botany. The data I enter will be added to the Museum’s herbarium database and will be available for future research projects as well as viewable online.

A herbarium specimen from the New York Botanical Garden of Myosotis albiflora.
Transcribing data from herbarium specimens like this is one of many possible citizen science projects. New York Botanical Garden, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This project is one of dozens of citizen science projects that are hosted on the Zooniverse website. Other projects from around the world include everything from looking at images from wildlife cameras to identify burrowing owls to transcribing historic land documents. If you have spare time and an interest in everything from literature to medicine to nature to history, it’s possible to contribute to a research project while sitting on your sofa. 

Citizen science is based on the idea that data collected by amateur researchers and the general public can add to the wealth of knowledge beyond what is gathered through formalized studies. Citizen scientists are usually volunteers who are interested in a particular subject or area of research and are happy to contribute to the greater good.

Zooniverse is by far the only online citizen science website. In Canada, the federal government offers the Citizen Science Portal, which provides a province-by-province listing of different opportunities. However, the most widely used citizen science website is likely iNaturalist, which allows anyone with a smartphone to upload photos of animal and plant species for identification, resulting in a worldwide of more than 200 million observations for nearly half a million different species and counting. 

Where iNaturalist differs from Zooniverse and some of the other citizen science projects, is that the data submitted to iNaturalist does not need to be part of a specific research project. Instead, the data is available to anyone who might want to use it, whether it be biologists, parks managers, or interested individuals. As someone who is interested in finding new-to-me species of wildflowers, iNaturalist has become a valuable resource for identifying possible locations for new sightings.

Of course, not all citizen science occurs online. Many agencies and organizations mobilize volunteers to collect data in their communities. For example, the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up asks volunteers from across the country to track litter collected from rivers, lakes, and oceans. As with many citizen science initiatives, the data collected is crowd-sourced, using the benefit of collecting large amounts of data from multiple volunteers as a way of eliminating potential collection errors or biases. 

Three young people stand on a mountaintop. Each of them are holding butterfly nets.
Citizen science takes a variety of forms. Park Ranger, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the challenges for many citizen science projects is that the amateur contributors don’t always see the end results of their work. While many of the volunteers spend time in nature and are happy to provide information, the outcomes and data trends are not always obvious. Encouraging project leaders to be transparent about how the data is used and the ongoing results could help to keep volunteers engaged. 

One area where the impacts of citizen science can be observed is in the collection of phenology data. Phenology, which is the study of seasonal events, such as migration or the timing of when flowers bloom or trees leaf out, is a subject that lends itself to citizen science. There are numerous citizen science initiatives that document phenological events and these observations can be compared to historical data to show how seasons are shifting over time. This research is particularly valuable as climate impacts increase. 

Purple and yellow flowers bloom on a hillside.
Recording bloom times of flowers like the Prairie Crocus adds to phenology data. USFWS Mountain-Prairie, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It should go without saying, but the great thing about citizen science is that you don’t have to be an expert, you just have to be interested. Do you like bees? There’s a project for that. Are you interested in space? NASA has you covered. No matter what your interest is, with a little searching, you can probably find a project to contribute to. It’s as simple as sitting on your couch.

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