The Future of Citizen Science

Documenting environmental change, building communities, transforming landscapes for conservation

By Janis L. Dickinson

Citizen Science director Janis Dickinson

Walter Koenig

In September 2005, after an idyllic, 18-year stint as a field biologist at the Hastings Reserve in upper Carmel Valley, California, I arrived at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to begin my new job as director of Citizen Science. Initially, my friends had been puzzled about why anyone would leave behind a tranquil life on 2,200 acres of the most beautiful habitat on the planet.

So I explained citizen science: "Okay, imagine that you, your next door neighbors, the people across the street, and the guy who runs the video store all start reporting data on the birds in their yards. Then imagine people in all of the towns nearby doing the same thing and scale that up to all of the towns and cities in North America." Then I started talking about involving people in Mexico and Cuba. "Okay," they said, "I get it."

The potential for citizen science to help the Lab's vigorous entry into global conservation science continues to excite me as I move through my first year here. Citizen science is important work, for it's an opportunity to make a difference the only way large, favorable, transformational changes are made?by involving large numbers of people, whose cumulative skills, efforts, and intentions lead to a positive outcome.

Citizen-science participants have changed the scale and scope of work that field biologists can accomplish. Networks of people distributed across the landscape take time from their busy lives to help answer questions, forming flexible networks that can adapt in response to new evidence and ideas and providing powerful means of uncovering and addressing impacts of large-scale environmental change.

Together, we are like a giant ant colony gathering information and bringing it back to one central location here at the Lab. Birders are skillful observers and their collective wisdom is synergistic. Without citizen scientists, we could not have begun to track the spread of House Finch eye disease or shed light on the effects of acid rain on the distribution of Wood Thrushes. But there is also an emotional component: birders love birds and birds need our help, which gives our collective work heart and meaning.

Our staff has a great a sense of mission and expansive ideas about how citizen science and education foster conservation. Although wildlife is often thought of as belonging to the wilderness, we believe that management of urban and suburban landscapes is also important for a diversity of bird species, whether resident or just passing through. Citizen science is at its most powerful where the people are: in cities, suburbs, and other human- dominated landscapes, which are typically difficult to manage with a blanket policy. Because of this, we are creating a citizen-science project to determine whether planting backyards, parks, and green spaces for wildlife increases bird diversity and abundance across the urban gradient.

Urbanization map of the United States showing urban areas (in black) and peri-urban areas (in green), based on city lights. Many small plots of land in urban areas could be improved for birds and other wildlife. NOAA and NASA

Using citizen science to monitor the impacts of restoration efforts in human-dominated landscapes will teach us just how many people are needed to make a difference. Imagine that all or even half the lights pictured on the map above represent backyards or parks or even prison yards. How might we work together to use these small plots of land to increase the diversity and abundance of resident and migrant birds across the continent?

The potential for using citizen science to build conservation communities is compelling, not only for the conservation impacts, but for the learning that takes place and for the potential to use bird watching to reduce feelings of isolation and improve mental health. What might the impact be if we were to combine our efforts to restore green spaces by planting bird-friendly natives, removing invasive species, and reducing pesticide use? In the words of Mary Oliver, whose poetry I have long admired, citizen science is a great opportunity to "Make of yourself a light."

Janis Dickinson (Cornell Entomology Ph.D. '87) is the Arthur A. Allen Director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and associate professor of Natural Resources at Cornell University. She comes to the Lab from the Hastings Natural History Reservation, where she was an associate research zoologist for the University of California, Berkeley. Her specialty is field ecology and animal behavior. She has published extensively on the ecology and social behavior of Western Bluebirds, among other topics.

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu