Published online September 23, 2024
https://doi.org/10.5141/jee.23.092
Journal of Ecology and Environment (2024) 48:36
Inae Yeo1* , Kwangjin Cho2
, Yeonsu Chu3
, Pyoungbeom Kim4
and Sangwook Han3
1Research Policy Planning Team, National Institute of Ecology, Seocheon 33657, Republic of Korea
2Ecological Restoration Team, National Institute of Ecology, Seocheon 33657, Republic of Korea
3Wetlands Research Team, National Institute of Ecology, Changnyeong 50303, Republic of Korea
4Wetlands Restoration Team, National Institute of Ecology, Changnyeong 50303, Republic of Korea
Correspondence to:Inae Yeo
E-mail iayeo@nie.re.kr
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The publisher of this article is The Ecological Society of Korea in collaboration with The Korean Society of Limnology
Background: In this study, citizen scientists gathered survey data by monitoring inland wetlands, recognized as carbon sinks, and verified the accuracy of the data for incorporation into ecosystem management policies.
Results: In October 2022, citizen scientists conducted surveys on three taxonomical groups (plants, mammals, terrestrial insects) in three wetland protection areas. After capturing photographs with location information, these images were uploaded to a national ecological information bank (EcoBank) managed in Korea. The information collected by citizen scientists underwent cross-validation through two expert methods, involving ecology field experts. First, experts conducted a survey of invasive alien plants in the designated areas and compared their findings with those of citizen scientists. The choice of survey locations by citizen scientists was influenced by their proximity to their residences. Second, an expert scrutinized the accuracy of species names collected and uploaded to EcoBank by citizen scientists, presenting their findings. The classification accuracy for species names was 98.8% for vegetation (n = 83), 21.6% for terrestrial insects (n = 21), and 66.7% for mammals (n = 8). These results indicate that citizen scientists may lack detailed classification ability at the species level.
Conclusions: Moving forward, it will be imperative to offer diverse forms of education to strengthen the capabilities of the citizen scientists, including sharing wetland survey results to enhance expertise in species identification, creating and distributing educational materials, and providing on-site education through professional surveyors.
Keywords: citizen science, conservation, ecosystem monitoring, wetland protection areas, wetland survey
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