Open AccessEfficiency of species survey networks can be improved by integrating different monitoring approaches in a spatial prioritization design
Author(s) -
MoránOrdóñez Alejandra,
Canessa Stefano,
Bota Gerard,
Brotons Lluis,
Herrando Sergi,
Hermoso Virgilio
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
conservation letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.153
H-Index - 79
ISSN - 1755-263X
DOI - 10.1111/conl.12591
Subject(s) - citizen science , government (linguistics) , scarcity , prioritization , participatory sensing , inefficiency , environmental resource management , environmental planning , citizen journalism , exploit , public participation , computer science , business , environmental economics , computer security , data science , process management , environmental science , political science , public administration , linguistics , philosophy , world wide web , economics , biology , microeconomics , botany
Public participation to monitoring programs is increasingly advocated to overcome scarcity of resources and deliver important information for policy‐making. Here, we illustrate the design of optimal monitoring networks for bird species of conservation concern in Catalonia (NE Spain), under different scenarios of combined governmental and citizen‐science monitoring approaches. In our case study, current government efforts, limited to protected areas, were insufficient to cover the whole spectrum of target species and species‐threat levels, reinforcing the assumption that citizen‐science data can greatly assist in achieving monitoring targets. However, simply carrying out both government and citizen‐science monitoring ad hoc led to inefficiency and duplication of efforts: some species were represented in excess of targets while several features were undersampled. Policy‐making should concentrate on providing an adequate platform for coordination of government and public‐participatory monitoring to minimize duplicated efforts, overcome the biases of each monitoring program and obtain the best from both.