Who and Where Are the Observers behind Biodiversity Citizen Science Data? Effect of Landscape Naturalness on the Spatial Distribution of French Birdwatching Records

Adrien Guetté, Sébastien Caillault, Joséphine Pithon, Guillaume Pain, Hervé Daniel, Benoit Marchadour and Véronique Beaujouan ()
Additional contact information
Adrien Guetté: Institut Agro, ESA, INRAE, BAGAP, 49000 Angers, France
Sébastien Caillault: Institut Agro, ESO Angers UMR CNRS 6590, 49000 Angers, France
Joséphine Pithon: Institut Agro, ESA, INRAE, BAGAP, 49000 Angers, France
Guillaume Pain: Institut Agro, ESA, INRAE, BAGAP, 49000 Angers, France
Hervé Daniel: Institut Agro, ESA, INRAE, BAGAP, 49000 Angers, France
Benoit Marchadour: Coordination Régionale LPO Pays de la Loire, 49000 Angers, France
Véronique Beaujouan: Institut Agro, ESA, INRAE, BAGAP, 49000 Angers, France

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-25

Abstract: The study of spatial bias in opportunistic data produced by citizen science programs is mainly approached either from a geographical angle (site proximity, accessibility, habitat quality) or from the angle of human behavior and volunteer engagement. In this study we linked both by analyzing the effect of observer profile on spatial distribution of recordings. We hypothesized that observer profile biases spatial distribution of records and that this bias can be explained by landscape naturalness. First, we established observer profiles from analysis of the temporal and spatial distributions of their records as well as record contents. Second, we mapped a naturalness gradient at regional and local scales. Using a dataset of more than 7 million bird records covering a time span of 15 years from the west of France, we defined four types of observer: garden-watchers, beginners, naturalists, and experts. We found that recording intensity could be related to naturalness at regional level; most visited areas were those where naturalness was on average lower i.e., close to population basins and highly accessible due to well-developed road infrastructure. At local level (neighborhood of recording sites), we found that experts and naturalists recorded in areas of higher naturalness index than those of garden-watchers and beginners. These results highlight how records contributed by different types of observer may lead to complementary coverage of different areas of the landscape. Future studies should therefore fully consider observer heterogeneity and how different observer profiles are influenced by local landscape naturalness.

Keywords: citizen science; spatial bias; observer profile; naturalness index; recording intensity; observer behavior; birders; observer engagement; landscape preferences; GIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/11/2095/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/11/2095/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:11:p:2095-:d:978586

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().