Data-Driven Stories Stemming From Public Participation in Science

Abstract

Seabirds are facing increasing anthropogenic stress in the current era of climate change. Anthropogenic stressors can be direct, such as oil spills increasing seabird mortality via intake of toxins, or indirect, such as marine heat waves decreasing seabird prey quality and quantity. I present research exploring the impacts of anthropogenic stressors on seabird populations, using data from a long-term, fine-grained citizen science dataset. Citizen science, where members of the public help collect data for scientific research, is a method of obtaining vast quantities of rigorous data. It also acts as a potential path for people who have historically been underrepresented in science to be included in science. In this work, I first explore the impacts of direct and indirect anthropogenic stressors on seabirds. In my first chapter, I identify seabird species that are relatively more susceptible to the direct stressor of oil spills, which can be used to help prioritize species for protection. The second chapter uses the natural history stressor of flight feather molt to explore how natural history and a variety of environmental stressors can combine to influence mortality of common murres (Uria aalge) and find that timing is key to determining how these stressors affect mortality. I then turn to consider the diversity of the citizen science participants who collect data like that used in my ecological research. In the third chapter, I quantify how the demographics of citizen science participants have changed over time and differ across types of projects, highlighting opportunities for increased diversity in citizen science. Taken together, my work underscores the use of citizen science both as a means of monitoring changes in populations of marine organisms and as a method of increasing representation for groups that have historically been underrepresented in science.