Citizen science: How to extend reciprocal benefits from the project community to the broader socio-ecological system

• Published in: Quantitative plant biology Vol. 3; p. e20
• Main Authors: Receveur, Aurore, Poulet, Lucie, Dalmas, Benjamin, Gonçalves, Barbara, Vernay, Antoine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Cambridge University Press 2022
• Subjects: Artificial intelligence; Big Data; citizen science; Collaboration; Data collection; Datasets; Ecological effects; Experiments; Flowers & plants; Humanities and Social Sciences; involvement; Law; Life Sciences; Participation; Phenology; Plant ecology; Plant sciences; quantitative data; Review; Scientists; Smartphones; Social-ecological systems; socio-ecological system; Soybeans; Vegetal Biology; Volunteers; citizen science; involvement; big data; quantitative data; socio-ecological system
• ISSN: 2632-8828; 2632-8828
• DOI: 10.1017/qpb.2022.16

Quantitative plant biology is a growing field, thanks to the substantial progress of models and artificial intelligence dealing with big data. However, collecting large enough datasets is not always straightforward. The citizen science approach can multiply the workforce, hence helping the researchers with data collection and analysis, while also facilitating the spread of scientific knowledge and methods to volunteers. The reciprocal benefits go far beyond the project community: By empowering volunteers and increasing the robustness of scientific results, the scientific method spreads to the socio-ecological scale. This review aims to demonstrate that citizen science has a huge potential (i) for science with the development of different tools to collect and analyse much larger datasets, (ii) for volunteers by increasing their involvement in the project governance and (iii) for the socio-ecological system by increasing the share of the knowledge, thanks to a cascade effect and the help of 'facilitators'.