Archives for Research

Ensuring that conservation decisions are informed by the best available data is a fundamental challenge in the
face of rapid global environmental change. Too often, new science is not easily or quickly translated into conservation
action. Open access data could serve as a tool to help bridge the gap between science and action, by providing conservation practitioners with access to relevant data in near real time. Broad-scale citizen-science data represent a fast-growing resource for open access databases, providing relevant and appropriately scaled data on organisms, much in
the way autonomous sensors do so on the environment. This paper uses eBird, a project where individuals around the
world submit data on bird distribution and abundance, as an example of how citizen-science data can be used to
achieve tangible conservation science and action at local, regional, and global scales. This examination illustrates
how these data can be strategically applied to improve our understanding of spatial and temporal distributions of
birds, the impacts of anthropogenic change on ecological systems, and creative conservation solutions to complex
problems.

The guide is meant as a starting point for individuals seeking out information to assess the pros and cons of various protocols in addressing their project objectives. In those cases where the protocols are inextricably linked to a broader monitoring program, the program itself (e.g., North American
Breeding Bird Survey) and/or the sampling scheme (e.g., Strategic Multi-scale Grassland Bird Population Monitoring) is summarized along with the protocol. Our focus was primarily on those protocols designed to measure abundance and demographic parameters.