Rangeland Ecologist University of Montana Culver City, California, United States
The iNaturalist citizen science database contains 125 million observations of over 400,000 different species. Unfortunately, it’s missing critical information about one important species: the human observers themselves! With more complete data on observer search effort and behavior, this enormous dataset could fill important gaps in our knowledge of biodiversity and yield vital information for conservation. I explore the predictability of iNaturalist contributors’ behavior and the possibility of using models to fill in missing data on observer search effort. Overcoming this challenge would unlock the full potential of large citizen science datasets for monitoring biodiversity at a global scale.
