Big data and amateur naturalists: recording wildlife in the woods

摘要

A study in 2003 found over 600 different species in upland Sitka spruce.1 This year, a Eu-ropean study found that non-native plantations were able to support far richer communities of birds than previously thought.2 Yet studies like these provide only glimpses and are resource-intensive.The answer could be 'citizen science': crowd-sourcing big data by engaging thousands of people to submit records, which can then be used for all kinds of research.