Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.

Citizen science is an approach that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Despite this growing popularity, there still is widespread scepticism in the academic world about the validity and quality of data from citizen science projects. And although there might be great potential, citizen...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Denise Jäckel, Kim G Mortega, Ulrike Sturm, Ulrich Brockmeyer, Omid Khorramshahi, Silke L Voigt-Heucke
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/3229e74d9a0d474586b7af1c2b64f49e
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:3229e74d9a0d474586b7af1c2b64f49e
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:3229e74d9a0d474586b7af1c2b64f49e2021-12-02T20:09:55ZOpportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0253763https://doaj.org/article/3229e74d9a0d474586b7af1c2b64f49e2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253763https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Citizen science is an approach that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Despite this growing popularity, there still is widespread scepticism in the academic world about the validity and quality of data from citizen science projects. And although there might be great potential, citizen science is a rarely used approach in the field of bioacoustics. To better understand the possibilities, but also the limitations, we here evaluated data generated in a citizen science project on nightingale song as a case study. We analysed the quantity and quality of song recordings made in a non-standardized way with a smartphone app by citizen scientists and the standardized recordings made with professional equipment by academic researchers. We made comparisons between the recordings of the two approaches and among the user types of the app to gain insights into the temporal recording patterns, the quantity and quality of the data. To compare the deviation of the acoustic parameters in the recordings with smartphones and professional devices from the original song recordings, we conducted a playback test. Our results showed that depending on the user group, citizen scientists produced many to a lot of recordings of valid quality for further bioacoustic research. Differences between the recordings provided by the citizen and the expert group were mainly caused by the technical quality of the devices used-and to a lesser extent by the citizen scientists themselves. Especially when differences in spectral parameters are to be investigated, our results demonstrate that the use of the same high-quality recording devices and calibrated external microphones would most likely improve data quality. We conclude that many bioacoustic research questions may be carried out with the recordings of citizen scientists. We want to encourage academic researchers to get more involved in participatory projects to harness the potential of citizen science-and to share scientific curiosity and discoveries more directly with society.Denise JäckelKim G MortegaUlrike SturmUlrich BrockmeyerOmid KhorramshahiSilke L Voigt-HeuckePublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 6, p e0253763 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Denise Jäckel Kim G Mortega Ulrike Sturm Ulrich Brockmeyer Omid Khorramshahi Silke L Voigt-Heucke Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
description	Citizen science is an approach that has become increasingly popular in recent years. Despite this growing popularity, there still is widespread scepticism in the academic world about the validity and quality of data from citizen science projects. And although there might be great potential, citizen science is a rarely used approach in the field of bioacoustics. To better understand the possibilities, but also the limitations, we here evaluated data generated in a citizen science project on nightingale song as a case study. We analysed the quantity and quality of song recordings made in a non-standardized way with a smartphone app by citizen scientists and the standardized recordings made with professional equipment by academic researchers. We made comparisons between the recordings of the two approaches and among the user types of the app to gain insights into the temporal recording patterns, the quantity and quality of the data. To compare the deviation of the acoustic parameters in the recordings with smartphones and professional devices from the original song recordings, we conducted a playback test. Our results showed that depending on the user group, citizen scientists produced many to a lot of recordings of valid quality for further bioacoustic research. Differences between the recordings provided by the citizen and the expert group were mainly caused by the technical quality of the devices used-and to a lesser extent by the citizen scientists themselves. Especially when differences in spectral parameters are to be investigated, our results demonstrate that the use of the same high-quality recording devices and calibrated external microphones would most likely improve data quality. We conclude that many bioacoustic research questions may be carried out with the recordings of citizen scientists. We want to encourage academic researchers to get more involved in participatory projects to harness the potential of citizen science-and to share scientific curiosity and discoveries more directly with society.
format	article
author	Denise Jäckel Kim G Mortega Ulrike Sturm Ulrich Brockmeyer Omid Khorramshahi Silke L Voigt-Heucke
author_facet	Denise Jäckel Kim G Mortega Ulrike Sturm Ulrich Brockmeyer Omid Khorramshahi Silke L Voigt-Heucke
author_sort	Denise Jäckel
title	Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
title_short	Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
title_full	Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
title_fullStr	Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
title_full_unstemmed	Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
title_sort	opportunities and limitations: a comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/3229e74d9a0d474586b7af1c2b64f49e
work_keys_str_mv	AT denisejackel opportunitiesandlimitationsacomparativeanalysisofcitizenscienceandexpertrecordingsforbioacousticresearch AT kimgmortega opportunitiesandlimitationsacomparativeanalysisofcitizenscienceandexpertrecordingsforbioacousticresearch AT ulrikesturm opportunitiesandlimitationsacomparativeanalysisofcitizenscienceandexpertrecordingsforbioacousticresearch AT ulrichbrockmeyer opportunitiesandlimitationsacomparativeanalysisofcitizenscienceandexpertrecordingsforbioacousticresearch AT omidkhorramshahi opportunitiesandlimitationsacomparativeanalysisofcitizenscienceandexpertrecordingsforbioacousticresearch AT silkelvoigtheucke opportunitiesandlimitationsacomparativeanalysisofcitizenscienceandexpertrecordingsforbioacousticresearch
_version_	1718375054177206272

Opportunities and limitations: A comparative analysis of citizen science and expert recordings for bioacoustic research.

Ejemplares similares