Marine Citizen Science and the Conservation of Mediterranean Corals: The Relevance of Training, Expert Validation, and Robust Sampling Protocols.
Marine Citizen Science (MCS) has emerged as a promising tool to enhance conservation efforts. Although the quality of volunteer data has been questioned, the design of specific protocols, effective training programs, and data validation by experts have enabled us to overcome these quality concerns,...
| Publicado en: | Environmental Management Vol. 73; no. 3; pp. 646 - 657 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Mar2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=175601667&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 175601667 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 0364152X O5H jtl: Environmental Management issn: 0364152X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2024 vid: 73 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature place: New York, New York artinfo: ui: 175601667 174231549 10.1007/s00267-023-01913-x 175601667 ppf: 646 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Marine Citizen Science and the Conservation of Mediterranean Corals: The Relevance of Training, Expert Validation, and Robust Sampling Protocols. aug: au: Figuerola-Ferrando, Laura Linares, Cristina Zentner, Yanis López-Sendino, Paula Garrabou, Joaquim affil: https://ror.org/021018s57 Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain sug: ab: Marine Citizen Science (MCS) has emerged as a promising tool to enhance conservation efforts. Although the quality of volunteer data has been questioned, the design of specific protocols, effective training programs, and data validation by experts have enabled us to overcome these quality concerns, thus ensuring data reliability. Here, we validated the effectiveness of volunteer training in assessing the conservation status of Mediterranean coral species. We conducted a comparative analysis of data collected by volunteers with different levels of expertise, demonstrating improvements in data precision and accuracy with only one training session, thereby achieving values equivalent to those obtained by scientists. These outcomes align with the feedback received from volunteers through a qualitative survey. Finally, we analysed the data generated by volunteers and validated by experts using the developed protocol in the Coral Alert project from the Observadores del Mar MCS initiative. Our findings highlight the importance of proper training, expert validation, robust sampling protocols, and a well-structured platform to ensure the success of long-term MCS projects. Overall, our results stress the key role MCS plays in enhancing the conservation and management strategies designed to mitigate the ongoing environmental crisis. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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