Lessons from lady beetles: accuracy of monitoring data from US and UK citizen-science programs

By M. Gardiner, L. Allee, P. Brown, John E. Losey, Helen E. Roy, R. Smyth. 2012

290 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Citizen scientists have the potential to play a crucial role in the study of rapidly changing lady beetle (Coccinellidae) populations. We used data derived from three coccinellid-focused citizen-science programs to examine the costs and benefits of data collection from direct citizen-science (data used without verification) and verified citizen-science (observations verified by trained experts) programs. Data collated through direct citizen science overestimated species richness and diversity values in comparison to verified data, thereby influencing interpretation. The use of citizen scientists to collect data also influenced research costs; our analysis shows that verified citizen science was more cost effective than traditional science (in terms of data gathered per dollar). The ability to collect a greater number of samples through direct citizen science may compensate for reduced accuracy, depending on the type of data collected and the type(s) and extent of errors committed by volunteers.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Insect Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8801ce73bea0c97f2d35f5e3bd4f4fdb49698461

Citations in the corpus

• Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers (2019, unknown): “Because the latter data tend to overestimate the diversity of insects due to over-reporting of rare species (Gardiner et al., 2012), the overall assessment of biodiversity can be considered conservative.”
• Assessing data quality in citizen science (preprint) (2016, unknown): “2011), confusion between similarlooking species, and the over- or under- reporting of rare, cryptic, or elusive species as compared to more common ones (Gardiner et al. 2012; Kelling et al. 2015; Swanson et al. 2016).”
• The role of exotic ladybeetles in the decline of native ladybeetle populations: evidence from long-term monitoring (2015, unknown): “variety of habitats, this taxon has been the subject of much research and public interest (Gardiner et al. 2012).”
• Is the insect apocalypse upon us? How to find out (2020, unknown): “Error and bias due to variation in the expertise of the participants is a recognized issue (Gardiner et al., 2012) and designing protocols that account for or minimize this is important (see Dennis et al.”
• The harlequin ladybird, Harmonia axyridis: global perspectives on invasion history and ecology (2016, unknown): “…Ladybird survey, Lost Ladybug Project and Buckeye Lady Beetle Blitz in the USA, Chinita arlequin in Chile and the harlequin ladybird survey in Norway have been established to track changes in ladybird populations (Gardiner et al. 2012; Losey et al. 2007; Roy and Brown 2015; Sæthre et al. 2010a, b).”
• Data reliability in citizen science: learning curve and the effects of training method, volunteer background and experience on identification accuracy of insects visiting ivy flowers (2016, unknown): “However, few studies have directly evaluated the accuracy with which volunteers identify insects (to our knowledge, only Gardiner et al. 2012).”