Can Anyone be a Scientist? Exploring the Role of Citizen Science in Coral Reef Research

CAN ANYONE BE A SCIENTIST? EXPLORING THE ROLE OF CITIZEN SCIENCE IN CORAL REEF RESEARCH Miranda Camp 1, Karsten Shein 2, J. Anthony Abbott 1, Kristi Foster 3, Carrie Manfrino 3 1 Stetson University, 2 NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, 3 Little Cayman Research Centre, Central Caribbean Marine Institute Senior Research Project Manuscript Mandy Camp Environmental Science and Studies Department, Stetson University April, 2016 Abstract Individuals lacking scientific training have made important contributions in many disciplines historically, but the role and value of public participation in modern professional research is controversial within the scientific community. Beneficially, citizen scientists provide a source of labor, a variety of skills, and capital, for example, paying to spend their vacations participating in environmental and ecological research. This link between the public and research serves as a bridge between science and education, creating a more environmentally informed populace. Additionally, citizen science is becoming a major supplement to undergraduate degree programs, providing opportunity for students to acquire applied field experience. At the same time, the contributions of non-scientists are scrutinized, and more easily dismissed by the scientific community on the basis that the data they collect may not be accurate. Through a survey of participants and scientists, this study evaluates and compares the role of both public and student-oriented citizen science in coral reef research. We examine professional scientists’ perceptions, public interest and awareness before and after participation, and engagement in environmental and ocean activism before and after participation with the goal of identifying challenges and opportunities that, if addressed, could optimize the use and effectiveness of citizen science programming, and resulting outreach. Introduction Citizen Science (CS), as implied by the name, is scientific research or data collection conducted by anyone that is not a professional in that particular field. CS has many benefits such as it being a vector for spreading environmental awareness via experiential learning, as well as serving as a source of free manpower to ongoing research projects, which can be imperative for the success of the project (Dickinson et al., 2012; Foster-Smith and Evans, 2003). It was our intent to examine the role of CS in coral reef research, and, if it has one, explore ways to improve existing CS programs in an effort to optimize the use of CS in coral reef research. Citizen Science Projects The public can connect with ongoing research by contacting organizations such as the Earthwatch Institute or Coralwatch. These entities serve as a liaison between the public and research organizations to arrange “alternative vacation” type trips in which individuals can arrive on site and contribute to a current project. Within coral reef research, opportunities for contributions from citizen scientists lie mostly in the capacity of observation: identifying species of sponges, corals, coral diseases or organisms in an area, documenting biodiversity by counting the number of each kind of fish that visit a certain area or sea urchins along a transect, or measuring coral or sponge surface area. For the purposes of this project, I am defining a CS project as one that includes two major components: (1) training in a skill (data collection method, species identification, etc.) that was previously foreign to the participant, and (2) constant supervision of participants by a professional scientist mentor. Why Coral Reef Research? Lead authors of this study have participated in CS in the capacities of student, public and mentor at institutions including the Central Caribbean Marine Institute’s Little Cayman Research Centre on Little Cayman Island, and Discovery Bay Marine Lab in Discovery Bay, Jamaica. This study utilizes network connections from those institutions to collect data, and serves as a point of comparison between our own experiences with CS and those of other respondents. In addition, coral reef research is a discipline that requires much manpower because of the vast extent of coral reefs, and topics if interest within coral reef research. Since the ocean environment is currently very much at risk to anthropogenic stressors, it is imperative that education regarding solutions and alternative to environmentally destructive practices be communicated to the public. The Debate Currently, there is a debate among scientists around the validity of data collected by citizen scientists. Some believe that data collected by non-professionals is not accurate enough to use in analysis or publication (Bell, 2007). This claim has been shown to have various soundness. When volunteers were trained to identify species of sponges within quadrats, morphological data collected from volunteers was acceptable and reliable. Two species were misidentified 10-20% of the time, however, authors indicated that this mistake could be eliminated with a little more training (Bell, 2007). In a study evaluating students’ ability to identify crab species, children of ages 3 and 7 years were able to differentiate between species at 80% and 95% accuracy, respectively. Even crab gender could be identified by 7-year-old children (Delaney et al., 2008). In addition to recording accurate data in these studies, citizen scientists consistently recorded occasions when they were not sure about the accuracy of an observation. This allowed data to be corrected before analysis. Methods (Ongoing) This study relies completely on virtual surveys of three different groups: trained scientist mentors of CS projects, partially trained university students, and presumably untrained public participants of coral reef related citizen scientist projects. I will only be surveying participants of coral reef related projects, as it is a point of comparison to our own experiences in similar work. Public and Student participants of CS are delineated to compensate for any variation in motivation or recent training. For example, students that are gaining experience in their future career field may be more motivated to perform at a higher caliber than members of the public on an alternative vacation. The goal of the survey was twofold: First, I aimed to further investigate the debate that citizen scientist-collected data is of questionable validity. Secondly, I tried to understand the breadth of the impact that these programs have on students’ academic development and professional career, as well as on the public’s level of environmental awareness and activism in their own communities as a result of participation in CS programs. Web based surveys were created in Survey Monkey and sent directly to participants from a coordinator of each citizen science organization being surveyed, in order to maintain anonymity. Surveyed organizations included web based list serves and blogs, the Citizen Science Association and Earthwatch – organizations that connect interested environmental enthusiasts with ongoing scientific research – and volunteer organizations such as REEF and ProjectAWARE. Surveys take no longer than fifteen minutes (see attached survey questions: Appendix A). Qualitative survey data were quantified using quantitative Liekart Analysis. This analysis provides a way to numerically represent collected survey responses and was be carried out in Survey Monkey’s qualitative survey response analysis program. Our goal is to get at least 50 responses from each survey group over the rest of the study period (March 2016 – June 2016). Conclusions and Discussion Of the 63 respondents to this survey, 15 identified as public participants of citizen science, 20 student participants and 31 leaders of citizen science trips. Of these 63, 4 public participants, 6 student participants and 22 mentors actually completed the majority of the questions for the survey after opening it. In order to be able to conduct meaningful analysis, we translated data from a very similar survey distributed by the Earthwatch Institute so its Public Participant respondents fit into our survey. Questions that were not addressed in Earthwatch’s survey are not addressed in our analysis so that a consistent sample size is maintained within each group of respondents. It is interesting that members of the public have not responded in large quantities to this survey. This could be for several reasons, the first of which being that the intermediaries, whom which we relied on to send out a link to the survey, never actually sent the survey. However, assuming that Public Participants were aware of the survey, the lack of responses is surprising because some Citizen Science organizations, such as Earthwatch, are costly alternatives to vacations. If participants were invested in these programs, we would have expected participants would have wanted to give feedback on the program. Although student participants are often paid to participate in these endeavors, they also understand the significance of scientific research. It is surprising to me that so few students have responded as well. Public and Student Participants Since we asked student and public participants the same questions, they are compared in the following Liekart analysis. Figure 1. Distribution of respondents to the survey. 21 Public Participants were not direct respondents, but data from a similar survey of Earthwatch. Figure 3. Results regarding the education of participants, success of outreach and other outcomes of coral reef-related Citizen Science projects. Mentors were in agreement with participants being more environmentally conscious and better stewards of the oceans after their participation, as indicated on the figure. Figure 2. Results from student and public participants regarding data accuracy and project understanding. Public Participants all reported that they received scientific training that increased their knowledge of the work that they were being asked to do, which was always within their ability and comfort level. Participants indicated that they were aware how their data were going to be used, and that their contribution was important, however, they were not always comfortable with data analysis. This question was intended to gauge Public Participant’s level of understanding of the projects that they were participating in, however, it is not required that citizen scientists do any interpretation or analysis of the data – this is the job of the mentor. Student Participants knew that their contributions were important, but had answers spreading from Neutral to Strongly Agree when asked if scientists were clear about what the data collected would be used for. This could be that the use of data collected by students is often determined by the students. They can pursue conferences, manuscripts and additional research, but this is up to them. Public and Student participants thought themselves to be environmentally conscious prior to contributing to Citizen Science as well as after, and responded that they participated in environmental and reef advocacy just as much before their participation as after. Students responses were spread from Table 1. Redundancy in asking mentors if the data collected by CS participants was accurate and asking if they use the data in their own work revealed that scientists that responded did deem CS collected data viable. Disagree to Agree when asked if they participated in environmental advocacy in their communities before their Citizen Science experiences, but all reported to be likely to participate in advocacy after their experience. This ambiguity could be a result of the age of student participants. Undergraduate age students have just recently gotten the opportunity to vote and recognize that their voice does matter. This could be the reason Students were less likely to participate in environmental advocacy in their communities before these programs. A more interesting result arose from participants’ responses to being asked if they were sharing what they learned on their trips with their communities, and if their newly acquired knowledge caused any changes in their own behaviors. Participants responded that they were sharing their knowledge with others in their communities even if they were not altering their own behaviors (e.g. recycling, using reusable bag and containers rather than plastic, etc.) upon returning home (Figure 2). Mentors to Citizen Science The majority of mentors that responded, 90%, indicated that the kinds of CS experiences that they assisted with aligned with their own work and that they use citizen science-collected data in their analyses and publications. However, mentors clarified that, though they use data collected by citizen scientists, 55% do not include those participants in data analysis, and 20% of those that do indicated that they only include Student Participants in analysis (Table 1). Question Response Have you used data that citizen scientists collect for your own projects? 87.50% Do you involve citizen scientists in data analyses and/or presentation of data from your project? 45.85% Mentors all at least Agree that Citizen Science programs make participants more environmentally conscious and aware, and all except one respondent indicated that engaging in these programs makes participants better environmental stewards (Figure 3). Overall, mentors perception of Citizen Science in coral reef research became more positive after they oversaw a program – the Liekert average increased from 3.67 to 4.04. Mentors also were more confident in participants abilities to perform science after they led a program – the Liekert average increased from 3.29 to 3.83. There was also an increase in Liekert average from 3.50 to 3.96 when asked about mentors’ perception of the value of the program before it began and after it was complete. Figure 4. Results from questions regarding mentors’ overall perception of CS and it's place in coral reef research. Figure 5. Results from questions regarding mentors’ overall perception of CS participants and data accuracy. Mentors’ preconceived notions of the abilities of citizen science participants and the value of Citizen Science in coral reef research may be due to the stereotype that data collected by citizen scientists was nonviable. After interacting with the public or students that are interested in learning about coral reefs and contributing to their conservation, mentors gained a better understanding of the abilities of the average person – they can be trained to collect valuable data. To address the debate that CS-collected data is of questionable validity, our respondents disagreed (Figure 5). Mentors were somewhat more inclined to trust data collected by a university student than a Public Participant, but both non-professional groups should be overseen more carefully than a professional collecting data. Mentors trusted that the training citizen scientists received made them qualified to collect sound data and make a meaningful contribution to coral reef research. Future Work and Implications It is our hope that we will be able to collect more responses of each of the three target study groups to strengthen the conclusions that have been presented so far. In summary, both Student and Public Participants of Citizen Science become more environmentally aware as a result of these programs and reported that even if they don’t change their own behaviors, they do spread their newly acquired awareness of the environment. Such programs appear to be valuable in student development and experiential learning, and once mentors have interacted and overseen such a program, they have a more positive perception of Citizen Science and the quality of the data collected by participants. By perfecting Citizen Science programs, the production of scientific research could be increased significantly, as the public serves as a source of extra labor, supporting large projects. More importantly, people that interact with the environment are more invested in it. These experiences protect our resources by educating people the value of marine resources and their current standing, and participants can use this knowledge to make a difference in their community. References Bell, J. J. 2007. The use of volunteers for conducting sponge biodiversity assessments and monitoring using a morphological approach on Indo-Pacific coral reefs. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 17:133-145. Delaney, D. G., C. D. Sperling, C. S. Adams, and B. Leung. 2008. Marine invasive species: validation of citizen science and implications for national monitoring networks. Biological Invasions 10:117-128. Dickinson, J. L., J. Shirk, D. Bonter, R. Bonney, R. L. Crain, J. Martin, T. Phillips, and K. Purcell. 2012. The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagement. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10:291-297. Foster-Smith, J., and S. M. Evans. 2003. The value of marine ecological data collected by volunteers. Biological Conservation 113:199-213. Marshall, N. J., D. A. Kleine, and A. J. Dean. 2012. CoralWatch: education, monitoring, and sustainability through citizen science. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10:332-334.