{"title":"No Bird Database is Perfect: Citizen Science and Professional Datasets Contain Different and Complementary Biodiversity Information","authors":"Sofía Galván, R. Barrientos, Sara Varela","doi":"10.13157/arla.69.1.2022.ra6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Summary. Citizen science has become a powerful tool for collecting big data on biodiversity. However, concerns have been raised about potential biases in these new datasets. We aimed to test whether citizen science bird databases have more biases than professional scientific databases. Our hypotheses were 1) citizen science databases will have more data on “easy to spot” species, that are widely distributed and have large body sizes; whereas 2) professional databases will have more endangered species and species of special interest for research. We analysed six Spanish bird databases: three professional, two citizen science and one mixed database. Our results show that, in general, occurrences in citizen science databases are better explained by the studied variables than professional databases, but no clear differences were found when analysed individually. Both citizen science and professional databases contain invaluable information on biodiversity but every database comes with a particular history and its stored data is the result of years of field sampling with heterogeneous goals, sampling methods and sampling effort. Consequently, raw observations should not be used directly as an ideal survey of the distribution or abundance of birds. We need to uncover these biases and develop new methods to properly incorporate the extensive and heterogeneous biodiversity data that is readily available to research.—Galván, S., Barrientos, R. & Varela, S. (2022). No bird database is perfect: citizen science and professional datasets contain different and complementary biodiversity information. Ardeola, 69: 97-114.","PeriodicalId":55571,"journal":{"name":"Ardeola-International Journal of Ornithology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ardeola-International Journal of Ornithology","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.13157/arla.69.1.2022.ra6","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ORNITHOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
Summary. Citizen science has become a powerful tool for collecting big data on biodiversity. However, concerns have been raised about potential biases in these new datasets. We aimed to test whether citizen science bird databases have more biases than professional scientific databases. Our hypotheses were 1) citizen science databases will have more data on “easy to spot” species, that are widely distributed and have large body sizes; whereas 2) professional databases will have more endangered species and species of special interest for research. We analysed six Spanish bird databases: three professional, two citizen science and one mixed database. Our results show that, in general, occurrences in citizen science databases are better explained by the studied variables than professional databases, but no clear differences were found when analysed individually. Both citizen science and professional databases contain invaluable information on biodiversity but every database comes with a particular history and its stored data is the result of years of field sampling with heterogeneous goals, sampling methods and sampling effort. Consequently, raw observations should not be used directly as an ideal survey of the distribution or abundance of birds. We need to uncover these biases and develop new methods to properly incorporate the extensive and heterogeneous biodiversity data that is readily available to research.—Galván, S., Barrientos, R. & Varela, S. (2022). No bird database is perfect: citizen science and professional datasets contain different and complementary biodiversity information. Ardeola, 69: 97-114.
期刊介绍:
Ardeola: International Journal of Ornithology is the scientific journal of SEO/BirdLife, the Spanish Ornithological Society. The journal had a regional focus when it was first published, in 1954. Since then, and particular during the past two decades, the journal has expanded its thematic and geographical scope. It is now a fully international forum for research on all aspects of ornithology. We thus welcome studies within the fields of basic biology, ecology, behaviour, conservation and biogeography, especially those arising from hypothesis-based research. Although we have a long publication history of Mediterranean and Neotropical studies, we accept papers on investigations worldwide.
Each volume of Ardeola has two parts, published annually in January and July. The main body of each issue comprises full-length original articles (Papersand Review articles) and shorter notes on methodology or stimulating findings (Short Communications). The publication language is English, with summaries, figure legends and table captions also in Spanish. Ardeolaalso publishes critical Book Reviewsand PhD-Dissertation Summaries; summarising ornithological theses defended in Spain. Finally there are two Spanish-language sections, Ornithological News; summarising significant recent observations of birds in Spain, and Observations of Rare Birds in Spain, the annual reports of the Spanish Rarities Committee.