Citizen science: a new approach to advance ecology, education, and conservation

Citizen science has a long history in the ecological sciences and has made substantial contributions to science, education, and society. Developments in information technology during the last few decades have created new opportunities for citizen science to engage ever larger audiences of volunteers to help address some of ecology’s most pressing issues, such as global environmental change. Using online tools, volunteers can find projects that match their interests and learn the skills and protocols required to develop questions, collect data, submit data, and help process and analyze data online. Citizen science has become increasingly important for its ability to engage large numbers of volunteers to generate observations at scales or resolutions unattainable by individual researchers. As a coupled natural and human approach, citizen science can also help researchers access local knowledge and implement conservation projects that might be impossible otherwise. In Japan, however, the value of citizen science to science and society is still underappreciated. Here we present case studies of citizen science in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and describe how citizen science is used to tackle key questions in ecology and conservation, including spatial and macro-ecology, management of threatened and invasive species, and monitoring of biodiversity. We also discuss the importance of data quality, volunteer recruitment, program evaluation, and the integration of science and human systems in citizen science projects. Finally, we outline some of the primary challenges facing citizen science and its future.Dr. Janis L. Dickinson was the keynote speaker at the international symposium at the 61th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan. We appreciate the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan for providing grant to Hiromi Kobori (25282044). Tatsuya Amano is financially supported by the European Commission’s Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship Programme (PIIF-GA-2011- 303221). The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the funding agencies or the Department of the Interior or the US Government.This is the final version of the article. It was first available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11284-015-1314-

Identifying Effective Behavior Change Techniques in Built Environment Interventions to Increase Use of Green Space: A Systematic Review

Green space has beneficial impacts on health, and there is increasing interest in how to modify green space to promote use. We identified effective behavior change techniques in environmental interventions that aimed to encourage use of green space. Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Interventions were coded by reviewers using the Behavior Change Technique taxonomy (BCTTv1). Eleven studies reported an increase in green space use post-intervention. Techniques involving physical environment changes (“adding objects to the environment” or “restructuring the physical environment”) were commonly delivered alongside additional techniques such as “restructuring the social environment,” introducing “prompts or cues” and “demonstration of the behavior.” Risk of bias was high or unclear for all, and the quality of evidence was very low. Intervention content was poorly described according to current reporting guidelines. More rigorous evaluations of green space interventions are needed, coupled with full descriptions of intervention content, to allow replication