Developing and evaluating a national citizen science program for invasive species

Citizen science programs have widespread applications to invasive species science where educating the public and increasing collaboration could prevent new introductions and control existing ones. We answered the following questions: (1) Can citizen scientists contribute to professional monitoring programs? (2) Can proper training provide skills necessary to collect data comparable to professionals? (3) Can participation improve knowledge, attitudes, and promote scientific inquiry? We found that many programs collect data and are willing to contribute these data to public databases. Although resources for education and monitoring are available, groups lack tools to manage and analyze data. Potential data users retain concerns over quality. We discuss addressing these concerns while preserving the advantages these programs afford. We also compared the ability of citizen scientists to effectively carry out an invasive plant species monitoring protocol after one day of training relative to expert data collectors. We found significant differences in the ability of volunteers and experts to record species presence in a plot and to identify species within defined search areas. Success generally reflected how difficult it was to identify the species being monitored. Success was correlated between volunteers and experts, with volunteer success in identifying species highly correlated with their self-identified comfort level in identifying these species prior to the training. Cover estimates did not significantly differ between groups. Although 69% of participants had little to no experience with using GPS units prior to the training, participants had an average success rate of 75% following the training. We performed regression analyses to determine predictors of success with each of these skills, but these proved to be poor predictors of performance. Finally, we found no changes in overall attitudes or science literacy between tests administered just before and after the training. We did find improvements in participants' science literacy and knowledge in three subject areas. These results suggest that citizen science has the ability to empower participants to think scientifically, but that alternative survey instruments are needed, calibrated appropriately to the pre-existing attitudes and levels of knowledge in these relatively sophisticated target groups. From these findings, we provide recommendations for similar programs.