In recent years, community science—also known as citizen science—has become a global phenomenon, engaging millions of people through wildlife observation platforms like iNaturalist and contributing unparalleled amounts of data on the natural world. Despite this, however, community science data remains widely underutilized by the scientific community due to its perception as being less reliable than expert-collected data. In a paper published last week in Oikos, California Academy of Sciences researchers—with support from the California Ocean Protection Council—present a new framework for how community-generated data can be effectively used to monitor and protect our planet’s biodiversity. Their findings show that community science data is not only useful, but necessary for uncovering the real-time impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss.
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Source: Phys.org