Drivers of the Distribution of Fisher Effort at Lake Alaotra,Madagascar

Understanding how fishers make decisions is important for improving management of fisheries. There is debate about the extent to which small-scale fishers follow an ideal free distribution (IFD) – distributing their fishing effort efficiently according to resource availability rather than being influenced by social factors or personal preference. Using detailed data from 1800 fisher catches and from semi-structured interviews with over 700 fishers at Lake Alaotra, the largest inland fishery in Madagascar, we show that fishers generally conform to IFD. However, there were differences in catch: effort relationships between fishers using different gear types as well as other revealing deviations from the predictions of IFD. Fishers report routine as the primary determinant of their choice of fishing location, explaining why they do not quickly respond to changes in catch at a site. Understanding the influences on fishers’ spatial behaviour will allow better estimates of costs of fishing policies on resource users, and help predict their likely responses. This can inform management strategies to minimise the negative impacts of interventions, increasing local support for and compliance with rules.     

Anticoagulant rodenticides on our public and community lands: spatial distribution of exposure and poisoning of a rare forest carnivore

Anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) poisoning has emerged as a significant concern for conservation and management of non-target wildlife. The purpose for these toxicants is to suppress pest populations in agricultural or urban settings. The potential of direct and indirect exposures and illicit use of ARs on public and community forest lands have recently raised concern for fishers (Martes pennanti), a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in the Pacific states. In an investigation of threats to fisher population persistence in the two isolated California populations, we investigate the magnitude of this previously undocumented threat to fishers, we tested 58 carcasses for the presence and quantification of ARs, conducted spatial analysis of exposed fishers in an effort to identify potential point sources of AR, and identified fishers that died directly due to AR poisoning. We found 46 of 58 (79%) fishers exposed to an AR with 96% of those individuals having been exposed to one or more second-generation AR compounds. No spatial clustering of AR exposure was detected and the spatial distribution of exposure suggests that AR contamination is widespread within the fisher's range in California, which encompasses mostly public forest and park lands Additionally, we diagnosed four fisher deaths, including a lactating female, that were directly attributed to AR toxicosis and documented the first neonatal or milk transfer of an AR to an altricial fisher kit. These ARs, which some are acutely toxic, pose both a direct mortality or fitness risk to fishers, and a significant indirect risk to these isolated populations. Future research should be directed towards investigating risks to prey populations fishers are dependent on, exposure in other rare forest carnivores, and potential AR point sources such as illegal marijuana cultivation in the range of fishers on California public lands.     

Finding fishers: determining fisher occupancy in the Northern Rocky Mountains

Monitoring rare and elusive carnivores is inherently challenging because they often occur at low densities and require more resources to effectively assess status and trend. The fisher (Pekania pennanti) is an elusive mesocarnivore endemic to North America; in its western populations it is classified as a species of greatest conservation need. During winter of 2018–2019, we deployed remotely triggered cameras in randomly selected, spatially balanced 7.5-km × 7.5-km grid cells across a broad study area in western Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington, USA. As part of this large-scale, multi-state monitoring effort, we conducted an occupancy assessment of the Northern Rocky Mountain fisher population at a range-wide scale. We used non-spatial occupancy models to determine the current extent of fisher occurrence in the Northern Rocky Mountains and to provide baseline occupancy estimates across a broad study area and a refined sampling frame for future monitoring. We used a spatial occupancy model to determine patterns in fisher occurrence across their Northern Rocky Mountain range while explicitly correcting for spatially induced overdispersion. Additionally, we assessed factors that influenced fisher occurrence through covariate occupancy modeling that considered predicted fisher habitat, site-level environmental characteristics, and the influence of available harvest records (incidental and regulated). We detected fishers in 32 out of 318 (10%) of our surveyed cells, and estimated that overall, 160 (14%; 95% CI = 115–218) of 1,143 grid cells were occupied by fishers. Fisher occupancy was positively associated with our stratum that contained cells with a greater proportion of predicted fisher habitat and with proximity to nearest 2000–2015 harvest location. Fisher occupancy was weakly and positively associated with increased canopy cover. Our spatial model identified 2 areas with higher predicted occupancy: a large area across the Idaho Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, and a smaller area in the Cabinet Mountain Range crossing the northern border of Idaho and Montana. We used spatial occupancy results from our original sampling frame to create a biologically derived refined sampling frame for future monitoring. Within the bounds of our refined sampling frame, we estimated that 155 (22%; 95% CI = 110–209) of 700 grid cells were occupied by fishers. By incorporating our increasing understanding of fisher habitat with contemporary analytical techniques, we defined current range-wide occupancy of the Northern Rocky Mountain fisher population, identified core areas of fisher occurrence for future conservation efforts, and used our model results to create a refined sampling frame for future fisher monitoring in the Northern Rocky Mountains.     

Folk taxonomy and scientific nomenclature: Working together for conservation of fishery resources in Brazil

Folk taxonomies of fishers are important for understanding the dynamics and diversity of fishes throughout the world. This study analyzed the folk taxonomy of artisanal fishers of the coast of the state of Paraíba, Brazil. Data were collected through free lists, semi-structured interviews and participant observations. A total of 308 local names were recorded, corresponding to 127 scientific taxa. The broad folk categories ‘pescada’ (croakers) and ‘cação’ (shark) were the most common. The Cognitive Salience Index (CSI) was used to assess which fishes the fishers knew best; the mutton snapper (Lutjanus analis) had the highest CSI score. Four hierarchical levels of folk taxonomy (kingdom, life form, generic and specific) were recorded. The local ichthyofauna contained 16 species at risk at the national level and 34 at the global level. Our results suggest that fisher folk taxonomy can complement scientific knowledge, improve and update threatened species lists and in doing so benefit fisheries management and conservation actions.     

Responses of sympatric canids to human development revealed through citizen science

Measuring wildlife responses to anthropogenic activities often requires long‐term, large‐scale datasets that are difficult to collect. This is particularly true for rare or cryptic species, which includes many mammalian carnivores. Citizen science, in which members of the public participate in scientific work, can facilitate collection of large datasets while increasing public awareness of wildlife research and conservation. Hunters provide unique benefits for citizen science given their knowledge and interest in outdoor activities. We examined how anthropogenic changes to land cover impacted relative abundance of two sympatric canids, coyote (Canis latrans), and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) at a large spatial scale. In order to assess how land cover affected canids at this scale, we used citizen science data from bow hunter sighting logs collected throughout New York State, USA, during 2004–2017. We found that the two species had contrasting responses to development, with red foxes positively correlated and coyotes negatively correlated with the percentage of low‐density development. Red foxes also responded positively to agriculture, but less so when agricultural habitat was fragmented. Agriculture provides food and denning resources for red foxes, whereas coyotes may select forested areas for denning. Though coyotes and red foxes compete in areas of sympatry, we did not find a relationship between species abundance, likely a consequence of the coarse spatial resolution used. Red foxes may be able to coexist with coyotes by altering their diets and habitat use, or by maintaining territories in small areas between coyote territories. Our study shows the value of citizen science, and particularly hunters, in collection of long‐term data across large areas (i.e., the entire state of New York) that otherwise would unlikely be obtained.     

Quantifying the Short-Term Costs of Conservation Interventions for Fishers at Lake Alaotra,Madagascar

Artisanal fisheries are a key source of food and income for millions of people, but if poorly managed, fishing can have declining returns as well as impacts on biodiversity. Management interventions such as spatial and temporal closures can improve fishery sustainability and reduce environmental degradation, but may carry substantial short-term costs for fishers. The Lake Alaotra wetland in Madagascar supports a commercially important artisanal fishery and provides habitat for a Critically Endangered primate and other endemic wildlife of conservation importance. Using detailed data from more than 1,600 fisher catches, we used linear mixed effects models to explore and quantify relationships between catch weight, effort, and spatial and temporal restrictions to identify drivers of fisher behaviour and quantify the potential effect of fishing restrictions on catch. We found that restricted area interventions and fishery closures would generate direct short-term costs through reduced catch and income, and these costs vary between groups of fishers using different gear. Our results show that conservation interventions can have uneven impacts on local people with different fishing strategies. This information can be used to formulate management strategies that minimise the adverse impacts of interventions, increase local support and compliance, and therefore maximise conservation effectiveness.     

Equivalence of citizen science and scientific data for modelling species distribution of birds from a tropical savanna

The Wallacean deficit continues to be a challenge to species distribution modelling. Although some authors have suggested that data collected by citizen scientists can be relevant for a better understanding of biodiversity, to our knowledge, no work has quantitatively tested the equivalence between scientific and citizen science data. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that data collected by citizen scientists can be equivalent to data collected by professional scientists when generating species spatial distribution models. For 42 bird species in the Cerrado region we generated and compared species distribution models based on three data sources: (1) scientific data, (2) citizen science data and (3) sample size corrected citizen science data. To test our hypothesis, we compared the equivalence of these datasets. We rejected the hypothesis of equivalence for about one-third (38%) of the evaluated species, revealing that, for most of the species considered, the models generated were equivalent irrespective of the data set used. The distances between centroids of the models that were equivalent were on average smaller than the distances between non-equivalent models. Also, the direction of change in the models showed no pattern, with no trend towards more populated regions. Our results show that the use of data collected by citizen scientists can be an ally in filling the Wallacean deficit gap. In fact, the lack of use of this wide range of data collected by citizen scientists seems to be an unjustified caution. We indicate the potential of using citizen science data for modelling the distribution of species, mainly due to the large set of data collected, which is impracticable for scientists alone to collect. Conservation measures will be favoured by the union of professional and amateur data, aiming for a better understanding of species distribution and, consequently, biodiversity conservation.     

Using behavior and ecology to exploit schooling fishes

By the late 1980's, humans were removing 76 million metric tons (MMT) of marine fishes annually. The potential sustainable catch is somewhere between 69 and 96 MMT. As a result, major fisheries have collapsed or are in danger of collapsing. Many of these species school. Schooling is effective against gape-limited predators because of dilution and confusion. However, larger predators may exploit schooling behavior to sequester and consume a non-trivial fraction of the group. This is the strategy of fishers. Both gear and fisher behavior have evolved to take advantage of the seemingly canalized response of schooling species. This paper examines the ways artisanal and western fishers have exploited knowledge of the behavior and ecology of schooling species to aid in fish capture. Topics include object association; use of light, sound, and chemicals; perceived barriers; predator-prey and other trophic interactions; inherent cyclical rhythms such as diel migration, lunar spawning, and seasonality; and correlations with the physical environment. Exploiting schooling allows fishers to increase efficiency through knowledge of when and where fish aggregate, or by extending the conditions under which aggregation occurs. However, knowledge of behavioral ecology can also be used to conserve schooling stocks. Gear selectivity, group size and population dynamics, and fisher efficiency are all potential areas of integration between behavioral ecology and fishery management. However, no amount of integration of behavioral ecology into fishery management will have the intended conservation effects if fishing effort is not limited to at least numerical if not behaviorally-sustainable levels.     

Long-term trends in seasonal plankton dynamics in Lake Mead (Nevada-Arizona,USA) and implications for climate change

Where biodiversity conservation and environmental preservation are significant concerns, rapid assessment and monitoring of the colonization and spread of non-native species are essential for timely decision-making and response. We developed and evaluated the adequacy of a rapid assessment protocol (RAP) for detecting non-native fish species in 74 Eastern Brazilian lakes. The RAP consists of a single field day employing two surveyors to conduct interviews with local sport fishers, visual surveys of fish, angling with lures, and gillnetting. We compared our results with those from separate, intense, large sampling effort (LSE) field surveys. Despite requiring less than 1/100th of the field effort, the RAP was able to detect the presence of most non-native fish species that were reported in the same lakes by LSE surveys. Information from local sport fishers was invaluable, particularly for detecting species that were in low abundance, but was not available for lakes within a forest preserve area. Non-native introductions commonly lead to rapid and widespread invasion and adverse effects on native biota. Our results strongly suggest that the RAP could function as a cost-effective tool for efficiently assessing the presence of non-native fishes in lakes and monitoring their colonization and spread over large geographic areas.     

Born‐digital biodiversity data: Millions and billions

Given the dramatic pace of change of our planet, we need rapid collection of environmental data to document how species are coping and to evaluate the impact of our conservation interventions. To address this need, new classes of “born digital” biodiversity records are now being collected and curated many orders of magnitude faster than traditional data. In addition to the millions of citizen science observations of species that have been accumulating over the last decade, the last few years have seen a surge of sensor data, with eMammal's camera trap archive passing 1 million photo‐vouchered specimens and Movebank's animal tracking database recently passing 1.5 billion animal locations. Data from digital sensors have other advantages over visual citizen science observation in that the level of survey effort is intrinsically documented and they can preserve digital vouchers that can be used to verify species identity. These novel digital specimens are leading spatial ecology into the era of Big Data and will require a big tent of collaborating organizations to make these databases sustainable and durable. We urge institutions to recognize the future of born‐digital records and invest in proper curation and standards so we can make the most of these records to inform management, inspire conservation action and tell natural history stories about life on the planet.     

An expert-assisted citizen science program involving agricultural high schools provides national patterns on bee species assemblages

Ecology studies often require large datasets. The benefits of citizen science for collecting such datasets include the extension of spatial and temporal scales, and cost reduction. In classical citizen science, citizens collect data and send them directly to scientists. This may not be possible for the many biological groups for which specimen identification is difficult and requires high-level expertise. Here we report the results of an expert-assisted citizen science program where teachers from 20 French agricultural high schools collected bees, which were identified to species level by a panel of expert bee taxonomists. Overall the dataset included 70 collections (year?×?sampling site combinations) that resulted in 4574 specimens belonging to 195 species. We analysed this dataset using data freely available at a national scale on agriculture intensity and landscape composition. We found that species richness increased with increasing proportion of herbaceous semi-natural elements; species dominance decreased with increasing crop diversity; the proportion of above ground nesting species and specimens increased as the intensity of agricultural practices decreased. Comparing the results obtained with identification to species level and those obtained with higher taxa or parataxonomic approaches, we found that the loss of taxonomic resolution resulted in the non-significance of some results on the effects of environmental variables on bee assemblage-level attributes. Our study suggests that identification to species level is of great importance to detect the effects of global change on bees and that an expert-assisted citizen science paradigm could provide relevant results to guide conservation measures at a national scale.     

Ethnotaxonomy of sharks from tropical waters of Brazil

Background

Accessing folk knowledge from small-scale fishers is an affordable and reliable approach to understand the dynamic and diversity of shark species worldwide, especially of those eventually caught. In this context, ethnotaxonomy (folk identification and classification) may represent an alternative to support sharks fisheries management, especially in data-poor places. This study aimed to investigate fishing and ethnotaxonomy of the main shark species caught by small-scale fisheries from the coastal waters of the Brazilian Northeast.

Methods

Semi-structured and structured interviews were conducted with fishers targeting general aspects of fishing activities and specific topics regarding ethnotaxonomy, capture, and commercialization of sharks. For species identification, an ethnobiological systematic perspective was used to analyze the folk nomenclature and classification criteria. Non-parametric statistical tests were used to verify associations between species caught, fishing gear, and harvest period.

Results

Fishers mentioned 73 binomial names, 21 main folk species, and eight synonymies. Some species belonging to the same scientific genus are often named and grouped by the same folk name, with no distinction between species by fishers. Sharks are most landed as bycatch and correspond to less than 5% of the total commercial fisheries in the communities, with socioeconomic value for subsistence consumption and local commercialization. Sharks were said to be mainly caught with hand line and surface long line during the rainy season, while gillnet captures were associated to the dry season. At least three of the species most mentioned by fishers are currently classified as vulnerable and endangered worldwide.

Conclusions

Even though landed sharks account for a small proportion of the fishing catches, their biological and life history features place sharks among the most vulnerable organisms globally. Such an ethnobiological approach towards shark identification may contribute to generate basic information on species caught, their frequency in the landings, and how different species belonging to the same genus can be landed and sold together. This type of information can generate subsidies to the development of conservation and management plans for these fishing resources, where knowledge is scarce.

     

How citizen science could improve species distribution models and their independent assessment

1. Species distribution models (SDM) have been increasingly developed in recent years, but their validity is questioned. Their assessment can be improved by the use of independent data, but this can be difficult to obtain and prohibitive to collect. Standardized data from citizen science may be used to establish external evaluation datasets and to improve SDM validation and applicability.
2. We used opportunistic presence‐only data along with presence–absence data from a standardized citizen science program to establish and assess habitat suitability maps for 9 species of amphibian in western France. We assessed Generalized Additive and Random Forest Models’ performance by (1) cross‐validation using 30% of the opportunistic dataset used to calibrate the model or (2) external validation using different independent datasets derived from citizen science monitoring. We tested the effects of applying different combinations of filters to the citizen data and of complementing it with additional standardized fieldwork.
3. Cross‐validation with an internal evaluation dataset resulted in higher AUC (Area Under the receiver operating Curve) than external evaluation causing overestimation of model accuracy and did not select the same models; models integrating sampling effort performed better with external validation. AUC, specificity, and sensitivity of models calculated with different filtered external datasets differed for some species. However, for most species, complementary fieldwork was not necessary to obtain coherent results, as long as the citizen science data were strongly filtered.
4. Since external validation methods using independent data are considered more robust, filtering data from citizen sciences may make a valuable contribution to the assessment of SDM. Limited complementary fieldwork with volunteer''s participation to complete ecological gradients may also possibly enhance citizen involvement and lead to better use of SDM in decision processes for nature conservation.

     

From Ethnobiology to Ecotoxicology: Fishers’ Knowledge on Trophic Levels as Indicator of Bioaccumulation in Tropical Marine and Freshwater Fishes

Information on fish trophic levels is important to assess fishing impacts and to better understand the bioaccumulation of pollutants within aquatic food chains. The local ecological knowledge held by small-scale fishers can fill knowledge gaps in fish trophic ecology. We estimated the trophic levels of 69 tropical and subtropical fish species (33 coastal and 36 freshwater species) using data on fish diets from the literature and obtained from interviews with Brazilian fishers. The fish trophic levels estimated from fishers’ knowledge were positively correlated with the trophic levels estimated using data from biological studies for both coastal and freshwater fish. The fishers’ knowledge also indicated bioaccumulation patterns, as the fish trophic levels estimated from fishers’ knowledge were positively related to the mercury (Hg) content in fish muscle (wet weight, from literature data) in 41 fish species (15 coastal and 26 freshwater). These findings reveal the potential for new applications of fishers’ knowledge to ecotoxicology, which could improve management of aquatic ecosystems and strengthen fishers’ political status.     

Efficacy of novel sampling approaches for surveying specialised recreational fisheries

Advances in fishing technologies have increased the efficiency and diversification of recreational fisheries. This poses challenges for surveying specialised or ‘hard-to-reach’ recreational fishers (e.g. sport fishers) that may take the majority of the recreational catch for some species, but are too rare within the general population to be sampled cost-effectively using existing methods. We trialled two new methods—time-location sampling (TLS) and online diaries—for surveying specialised recreational longtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol) fishers. Results were compared with a concurrent traditional access point survey (APS). Online diaries were inexpensive but unsuitable for collecting representative data due to avidity, volunteerism, and differential recruitment bias. APS yielded high resolution data on catch, effort and size composition but was expensive and ineffective for sampling all components of the fishery. In contrast, TLS conducted at fishing tackle stores was cost-effective for accessing the breadth of fisher types due to the need for all fishers to purchase or to inspect fishing-related products at some point. Given the frequent absence of complete list frames for recreational fisheries, we suggest undertaking multiple TLS surveys to collect catch rate data and to simultaneously estimate population size using capture-recapture approaches in order to estimate the total recreational catch of species of interest.     

Rapidly shifting environmental baselines among fishers of the Gulf of California

Shifting environmental baselines are inter-generational changes in perception of the state of the environment. As one generation replaces another, people's perceptions of what is natural change even to the extent that they no longer believe historical anecdotes of past abundance or size of species. Although widely accepted, this phenomenon has yet to be quantitatively tested. Here we survey three generations of fishers from Mexico's Gulf of California (N=108), where fish populations have declined steeply over the last 60 years, to investigate how far and fast their environmental baselines are shifting. Compared to young fishers, old fishers named five times as many species and four times as many fishing sites as once being abundant/productive but now depleted (Kruskal-Wallis tests, both p<0.001) with no evidence of a slowdown in rates of loss experienced by younger compared to older generations (Kruskal-Wallis test, n.s. in both cases). Old fishers caught up to 25 times as many Gulf grouper Mycteroperca jordani as young fishers on their best ever fishing day (regression r(2)=0.62, p<0.001). Despite times of plentiful large fish still being within living memory, few young fishers appreciated that large species had ever been common or nearshore sites productive. Such rapid shifts in perception of what is natural help explain why society is tolerant of the creeping loss of biodiversity. They imply a large educational hurdle in efforts to reset expectations and targets for conservation.     

Movements of undersized spotted grunter (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Pomadasys commersonnii</Emphasis>) in the Great Fish Estuary,South Africa: implications for fisheries management

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that an estuarine species as the spotted grunter Pomadasys commersonnii is evenly distributed within the estuary and uniformly exploited by different groups of fishers. This was done by investigating the movements and area use of spotted grunter in relation to the fisheries. The position of 20 acoustically tagged fish was recorded during 36 days in February and March 2003, by manual tracking and automated data logging receivers. Information on the fisheries in the estuary was collected through visual registration of fishing effort and interviews. The spotted grunter moved on average 1.0 km (SD ± 0.7) between positional fixes. Most of the fish were positioned in the lower part of the 12 km long estuary, as 70% of the positional fixes were within the first 3 km, and 89% within the first 6 km. Approximately half (49%) of all the fixes were between 1.0 and 1.5 km from the estuary mouth. The spotted grunter used on average 4.9 km (SD ± 4.9) of the length of the estuary, and there was no significant relationship between the length of the estuary used and the body length of the fish (26–39 cm TL). Subsistence fishers accounted for 73% of fishing lines in the water, while recreational fishers accounted for the rest. Ninety-three percent of the lines were recorded within the first 6 km from the estuary mouth, of which 80% were recorded within the first 3 km. Almost 1/3 of the fishing effort was recorded between 1.0 and 1.5 km from the mouth. The hypothesis that the estuarine dependent species spotted grunter was evenly distributed within the estuary was rejected. However, there was a significant relationship between the distribution of the fishing effort of the subsistence fishers and the fish, indicating that the spotted grunter was uniformly exploited within the estuary by this group of fishers. In contrast, there was no relationship between the distribution of fish and recreational anglers.     

American marten and fisher do not segregate in space and time during winter in a mixed‐forest system

Understanding the mechanisms of coexistence between ecologically similar species is an important issue in ecology. Carnivore coexistence may be facilitated by spatial segregation, temporal avoidance, and differential habitat selection. American martens Martes americana and fishers Pekania pennanti are medium‐sized mustelids that occur sympatrically across portions of North America, yet mechanisms of coexistence between the two species are not fully understood. We assessed spatial and temporal partitioning in martens and fishers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA, using camera trap data collected during winter 2013–2015. To investigate spatial segregation, we used a dynamic occupancy model to estimate species’ occupancy probabilities and probabilities of persistence and colonization as a function of covariates and yearly occupancy probability for the other species. Temporal segregation was assessed by estimating diel activity overlap between species. We found weak evidence of spatial or temporal niche partitioning of martens and fishers. There was high overlap in forest cover selection, and both marten and fisher occupancy were positively correlated with deciduous forests (excluding aspen [Populus tremuloides]). There was strong temporal overlap (; CI = 0.79–0.82) with both species exhibiting largely crepuscular activity patterns. Co‐occurrence of martens and fishers appears to be facilitated by mechanisms not investigated in this study, such as partitioning of snow features or diet. Our results add additional insights into resource partitioning of mesocarnivores, but further research is required to enhance our understanding of mechanisms that facilitate marten and fisher coexistence.     

Correlates of Research Effort in Carnivores: Body Size,Range Size and Diet Matter

Given the budgetary restrictions on scientific research and the increasing need to better inform conservation actions, it is important to identify the patterns and causes of biases in research effort. We combine bibliometric information from a literature review of almost 16,500 peer-reviewed publications on a well-known group of 286 species, the Order Carnivora, with global datasets on species'' life history and ecological traits to explore patterns in research effort. Our study explores how species'' characteristics influenced the degree to which they were studied (measured as the number of publications). We identified a wide variation in intensity of research effort at both Family and Species levels, with some of the least studied being those which may need protection in future. Our findings hint at the complex role of human perspectives in setting research agendas. We found that better-studied species tended to be large-bodied and have a large geographic range whilst omnivory had a negative relationship with research effort. IUCN threat status did not exhibit a strong relationship with research effort which suggests that the conservation needs of individual species are not major drivers of research interest. This work is the first to use a combination of bibliometric analysis and biological data to quantify and interpret gaps in research knowledge across an entire Order. Our results could be combined with other resources, such as Biodiversity Action Plans, to prioritise and co-ordinate future research effort, whilst our methods can be applied across many scientific disciplines to describe knowledge gaps.     

Challenges for biodiversity monitoring using citizen science in transitioning social–ecological systems

Biodiversity monitoring requires sound data collection over large temporal and spatial scales in order to inform policy and conservation management. Citizen science programmes, if designed appropriately, can make valuable contributions to data collection and analyses. Moreover, citizen science has potential for both environmental education and civic participation. Recommendations on effective citizen science are available in the literature, but most existing work has come from relatively rich, industrialized countries. By contrast, there is very little knowledge on citizen science projects in transitioning economic, social and cultural settings. This paper seeks to adjust this deficit by contributing insights from our attempt to initiate a new monitoring scheme in Romania. We draw on our experience of conducting workshops, training events and camps to strengthen citizen engagement in a butterfly monitoring scheme, and discussions with many stakeholders engaged in other monitoring programmes inside and outside of Europe. We highlight four general themes that are worth considering when initiating new citizen science projects in socio-economically challenging settings: (i) engaging citizens requires a combination of formal and informal support; (ii) a culture of volunteering requires education as well as building capacity and confidence; (iii) citizen science needs active integration of both national experts and local stakeholders; and (iv) successful monitoring schemes require effective leadership. We conclude that particular attention should be paid to the cultural legacies of the target area.