The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations

Abstract The active collection of wildlife sighting data by trained observers is expensive, restricted to small geographical areas and conducted infrequently. Reporting of wildlife sightings by members of the public provides an opportunity to collect wildlife data continuously over wider geographica...

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Autores principales:	Ravi Bandara Dissanayake, Mark Stevenson, Rachel Allavena, Joerg Henning
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2019
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/1ae9cadecfc14ebd9de52b7cc0d206c7
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:1ae9cadecfc14ebd9de52b7cc0d206c72021-12-02T15:09:53ZThe value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations10.1038/s41598-019-46376-52045-2322https://doaj.org/article/1ae9cadecfc14ebd9de52b7cc0d206c72019-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46376-5https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract The active collection of wildlife sighting data by trained observers is expensive, restricted to small geographical areas and conducted infrequently. Reporting of wildlife sightings by members of the public provides an opportunity to collect wildlife data continuously over wider geographical areas, at lower cost. We used individual koala sightings reported by members of the public between 1997 and 2013 in South-East Queensland, Australia (n = 14,076 koala sightings) to describe spatial and temporal trends in koala presence, to estimate koala sighting density and to identify biases associated with sightings. Temporal trends in sightings mirrored the breeding season of koalas. Sightings were high in residential areas (63%), followed by agricultural (15%), and parkland (12%). The study area was divided into 57,780 one-square kilometer grid cells and grid cells with no sightings of koalas decreased over time (from 35% to 21%) indicative of a greater level of spatial overlap of koala home ranges and human activity areas over time. The density of reported koala sightings decreased as distance from primary and secondary roads increased, indicative of a higher search effort near roads. Our results show that koala sighting data can be used to refine koala distribution and population estimates derived from active surveying, on the condition that appropriate bias correction techniques are applied. Collecting koala absence and search effort information and conducting repeated searches for koalas in the same areas are useful approaches to improve the quality of sighting data in citizen science programs.Ravi Bandara DissanayakeMark StevensonRachel AllavenaJoerg HenningNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Ravi Bandara Dissanayake Mark Stevenson Rachel Allavena Joerg Henning The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
description	Abstract The active collection of wildlife sighting data by trained observers is expensive, restricted to small geographical areas and conducted infrequently. Reporting of wildlife sightings by members of the public provides an opportunity to collect wildlife data continuously over wider geographical areas, at lower cost. We used individual koala sightings reported by members of the public between 1997 and 2013 in South-East Queensland, Australia (n = 14,076 koala sightings) to describe spatial and temporal trends in koala presence, to estimate koala sighting density and to identify biases associated with sightings. Temporal trends in sightings mirrored the breeding season of koalas. Sightings were high in residential areas (63%), followed by agricultural (15%), and parkland (12%). The study area was divided into 57,780 one-square kilometer grid cells and grid cells with no sightings of koalas decreased over time (from 35% to 21%) indicative of a greater level of spatial overlap of koala home ranges and human activity areas over time. The density of reported koala sightings decreased as distance from primary and secondary roads increased, indicative of a higher search effort near roads. Our results show that koala sighting data can be used to refine koala distribution and population estimates derived from active surveying, on the condition that appropriate bias correction techniques are applied. Collecting koala absence and search effort information and conducting repeated searches for koalas in the same areas are useful approaches to improve the quality of sighting data in citizen science programs.
format	article
author	Ravi Bandara Dissanayake Mark Stevenson Rachel Allavena Joerg Henning
author_facet	Ravi Bandara Dissanayake Mark Stevenson Rachel Allavena Joerg Henning
author_sort	Ravi Bandara Dissanayake
title	The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
title_short	The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
title_full	The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
title_fullStr	The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
title_full_unstemmed	The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
title_sort	value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/1ae9cadecfc14ebd9de52b7cc0d206c7
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The value of long-term citizen science data for monitoring koala populations

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