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The EuropaBON project aims to co-design a European Biodiversity Observation Network by utilising Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) as the foundation for its monitoring system. To co-design the workflow steps for each EBV, the project organised a virtual workshop to engage a diverse group of experts and stakeholders. The workshop focused on describing various workflow components, identifying future needs for EBV implementation and specifying the relative importance of different monitoring techniques for each EBV. With 520 participants from 49 countries, the workshop benefited from a large stakeholder engagement and a wide range of expertise across realms, EBV classes, monitoring techniques and workflow components. During the 3-day workshop (2 hours per day), participants captured different workflows components (i.e. data collection and sampling, data integration and modelling), specified current EU or national initiatives and identified emerging tools and future needs for all 70 currently proposed EBVs. By the end of the workshop, all 70 templates of EBV workflows contained details about workflow components and future needs. Specific future needs for data collection and sampling highlighted by participants were to increase sampling efforts (e.g. number of sites, geographic coverage, sampling frequency and taxonomic scope), to develop and better incorporate novel monitoring techniques (e.g. eDNA, remote sensing and digital sensors) and to create new or improved sampling designs at a European scale. For data integration, combining and harmonising data from diverse sources and data collectors and developing standards and protocols were mentioned as key needs. For modelling, participants especially highlighted the need to develop spatially-explicit models or improve other types of existing models, ideally with open-source software and code. Next steps for designing EBV workflows are to analyse the gathered workshop information, to provide detailed descriptions of EBV workflows and to formulate specific recommendations for the development of a European Biodiversity Observation Network. Recommendations for each monitoring technique (structured in-situ monitoring, citizen science, digital sensors, genetics, satellite remote sensing and aerial remote setting) will also be identified. The gathered information will contribute to the co-design of the European Biodiversity Observation Network and to supporting the establishment of a Biodiversity Monitoring Coordination Centre in Europe.

Species diversity underpins all ecosystem services that support life. Despite this recognition and the great advances in detecting biodiversity, exactly how many and which species co-occur and interact, directly or indirectly in any ecosystem is unknown. Biodiversity accounts are incomplete; taxonomically, size, habitat, mobility or rarity biased. In the ocean, the provisioning of fish, invertebrates and algae is a fundamental ecosystem service. This extracted biomass depends on a myriad of microscopic and macroscopic organisms that make up the fabric of nature and which are affected by management actions. Monitoring them all and attributing changes to management policies is daunting. Here we propose that dynamic quantitative models of species interactions can be used to link management policy and compliance with complex ecological networks. This allows managers to qualitatively identify ‘interaction-indicator’ species, which are highly impacted by management policies through propagation of complex ecological interactions. We ground the approach in intertidal kelp harvesting in Chile and fishers' compliance with policies. Results allow us to identify sets of species that respond to management policy and/or compliance, but which are often not included in standardized monitoring. The proposed approach aids in the design of biodiversity programmes that attempt to connect management with biodiversity change. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Detecting and attributing the causes of biodiversity change: needs, gaps and solutions’.

Airborne pollen surveys provide information on various aspects of biodiversity and human health monitoring. Such surveys are typically conducted using the Burkard Multi-Vial Cyclone Sampler, but have to be technically optimized for eDNA barcoding. We here developed and tested a new airborne pollen trap, especially suitable for autonomous eDNA-metabarcoding analyses, called the A1 volumetric air sampler. The trap can sample pollen in 24 different tubes with flexible intervals, allowing it to operate independently in the field for a certain amount of time. We compared the efficiency of the new A1 volumetric air sampler with another automated volumetric spore trap, the Burkard Multi-Vial Cyclone Sampler, which features shorter and fewer sampling intervals to evaluate the comparability of ambient pollen concentrations. In a sterile laboratory environment, we compared trap performances between the automated volumetric air samplers by using pure dry pollen of three species—Fagus sylvatica, Helianthus annuus and Zea mays—which differ both by exine ornamentation and pollen size. The traps had a standard suction flow rate of 16.5 L/min, and we counted the inhaled pollen microscopically after a predefined time interval. Our results showed that though we put three different pollen types in the same container, both the traps inhaled all the pollens in a statistically significant manner irrespective of their size. We found that, on average, both traps inhaled equal an number of pollens for each species. We did not detect any cross-contamination between tubes. We concluded that the A1 volumetric air sampler has the potential to be used for longer and more flexible sampling intervals in the wild, suitable for autonomous monitoring of eDNA pollen diversity.

Monitoring biodiversity in forests is crucial for their management and preservation, especially in light of increasing climatic disturbances. However, traditional methods of surveying forest biodiversity, such as the inventory of tree-related microhabitats (TreMs), are costly and time-consuming. For many years, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) was the main method for producing highly accurate 3D models of forests. However, with recent advancements in 3D scanning technologies, there are now numerous alternatives available on the market. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of four different 3D data acquisition methods, i.e. close-range photogrammetry (CRP), fish-eye photogrammetry (FEP), mobile laser scanning (MLS), and mixed reality depth camera (MRDC), in terms of accuracy and ability to measure biodiversity (TreMs) at tree-stem level, in comparison to TLS. Analysis was performed based on geometric accuracy and point neighbourhood relevance. CRP was the most accurate alternative to TLS for TreM measurement with a median error of 1.5 cm, while FEP provided a good balance between accuracy (median error 1.4 cm) and speed of data collection. Although MLS showed promising results (median error 1.6 cm), noise in the point cloud limited its ability to identify TreMs. MRDC, on the other hand, had lower quality (median error 3.6 cm) and lower point density, making it unsuitable for TreM segmentation. Nevertheless, the study demonstrated the feasibility of augmenting the real world with virtual content at single-tree-stem level using mixed reality technology. Overall, the 3D scanning technologies presented hold great promise for recording the evolution of biodiversity at stem level., International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 122, ISSN:0303-2434, ISSN:1872-826X, ISSN:1569-8432

Key message Authors have analyzed the possible correlation between measurements/indicators of forest structure and species richness of many taxonomic or functional groups over three regions of Germany. Results show the potential to use structural attributes as a surrogate for species richness of most of the analyzed taxonomic and functional groups. This information can be transferred to large-scale forest inventories to support biodiversity monitoring. Context We are currently facing a dramatic loss in biodiversity worldwide and this initiated many monitoring programs aiming at documenting further trends. However, monitoring species diversity directly is very resource demanding, in particular in highly diverse forest ecosystems. Aims We investigated whether variables applied in an index of stand structural diversity, which was developed based on forest attributes assessed in the German National Forest Inventory, can be calibrated against richness of forest-dwelling species within a wide range of taxonomic and functional groups. Methods We used information on forest structure and species richness that has been comprehensively assessed on 150 forest plots of the German biodiversity exploratories project, comprising a large range of management intensities in three regions. We tested, whether the forest structure index calculated for these forest plots well correlate with the number of species across 29 taxonomic and functional groups, assuming that the structural attributes applied in the index represent their habitat requirements. Results The strength of correlations between the structural variables applied in the index and number of species within taxonomic or functional groups was highly variable. For some groups such as Aves, Formicidae or vascular plants, structural variables had a high explanatory power for species richness across forest types. Species richness in other taxonomic and functional groups (e.g., soil and root-associated fungi) was not explained by individual structural attributes of the index. Results indicate that some taxonomic and functional groups depend on a high structural diversity, whereas others seem to be insensitive to it or even prefer structurally poor stands. Conclusion Therefore, combinations of forest stands with different degrees of structural diversity most likely optimize taxonomic diversity at the landscape level. Our results can support biodiversity monitoring through quantification of forest structure in large-scale forest inventories. Changes in structural variables over inventory periods can indicate changes in habitat quality for individual taxonomic groups and thus points towards national forest inventories being an effective tool to detect unintended effects of changes in forest management on biodiversity., Annals of Forest Science, 80 (1), ISSN:1286-4560, ISSN:1297-966X

Biodiversity is declining at alarming rates worldwide and large-scale monitoring is urgently needed to understand changes and their drivers. While classical taxonomic identification of species is time and labor intensive, the combination with DNA-based methods could upscale monitoring activities to achieve larger spatial coverage and increased sampling effort. However, challenges remain for DNA-based methods when species counts and/or biomass estimates are required. Several methodological advancements exist to improve the potential of DNA metabarcoding for abundance analysis, which however need further evaluation. Here, we discuss laboratory, as well as some bioinformatic adjustments to DNA metabarcoding workflows regarding their potential to achieve species abundance estimation from arthropod community samples. Our review includes pre-laboratory processing methods such as specimen photography, laboratory methods such as the use of spike-in DNA as an internal standard and bioinformatic advancements like correction factors. We conclude that specimen photography coupled with DNA metabarcoding currently promises the greatest potential to achieve species counts and biomass estimates, but that approaches such as spike-ins and correction factors are promising methods to pursue further.

We require a real-time, modular earth observation system that unites efforts across research groups in order to provide the necessary information necessary for global-scale impact in sustainability and conservation in the face of climate change. The development of such systems requires collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches that translate diverse sources of raw information into accessible scientific insight. For example, we need to monitor species in real time and in greater detail to quickly understand which conservation efforts are most effective and take corrective action. Current ecological monitoring systems generate data far faster than researchers can analyze it, making scaling up impossible without automated data processing. However, ecological data collected in the field presents a number of challenges that current methods, like deep learning, are not designed to tackle. These include strong spatiotemporal correlations, imperfect data quality, fine-grained categories, and long-tailed distributions. Our work seeks to overcome these challenges, and this thesis includes methods which can learn from imperfect data, systematic frameworks and benchmarks for measuring and overcoming performance drops due to domain shift, and the development and deployment of efficient human-AI systems that have made significant real-world conservation impact.

Forest edges can be important strongholds for biodiversity and play a crucial role in the protection of forest interiors against edge effects. However, their potential to host biodiversity is dependent on the structure of the forest: Abrupt edges often fail to realise this potential. Yet, methods to accurately characterise and quantify forest edge abruptness are currently lacking. Here, we combine three-dimensional forest structural data with biodiversity monitoring to assess the influence of forest edge structure on habitat suitability. We derived several structural metrics to determine forest edge abruptness using terrestrial laser scanning and applied these to six forest edge transects in Belgium. The local soundscapes were captured using audio recording devices (Audiomoths) and quantified using acoustic indices (AIs) (metrics on the soundscape characteristics). In each transect, the dawn choruses were recorded over a period of a week, both at the edge and the interior of the forest. No correlation between the AIs and bird species richness was found. There were clear differences between transects in the structural metrics and the recorded soundscapes. Some possible relations between both were found. In this proof of concept, we demonstrated innovative techniques to semi-automatically classify forest structure and rapidly quantify soundscape characteristics and found a weak effect of forest edge structure on bird biophony.

This report describes the database on biodiversity monitoring initiatives at the European level collected by EuropaBON (WP3 - task 3.1; EuropaBON biodiversity database from hereon) and the web-based platform (website) that contains it. The website serves the dual purpose of being the platform for data entry, as well as to allow the visualisation and quick consultation of the collected data. This report also gives a brief summary of the data collected up to the date of delivery of the report (end November 2021). Previous efforts on collecting information on existing monitoring efforts in Europe have concentrated in describing programs using a generalist approach that has received criticism because of lack of completeness even for well documented groups such as birds. Including all available information on monitoring in Europe at any spatial scale is difficult because of the high number of unlinked initiatives, specially at local scales, and the dynamic nature of these projects both in terms of the emergence of new efforts and the disappearance of old ones. To address this challenge, the EuropaBON project focusses on the monitoring network concept and aims at identifying, with priority, those monitoring efforts that are coordinated and especially those in which this coordination is consistent at a supranational level and at the European scale. Coordination in the context of monitoring is related to the integration of data and information across scales which is the underlying concept of a future successful biodiversity monitoring network in Europe.

Biodiversity monitoring is crucial for ecosystem conservation, but ground data collection is limited by cost, time, and scale. Remote sensing is a convenient approach providing frequent, near-real-time information with fine resolution over wide areas. According to the Spectral Variation Hypothesis (SVH), spectral diversity (SD) is an effective proxy of environmental heterogeneity, which ultimately relates to plant diversity. So far, studies testing the relationship between SD and biodiversity have reported contradictory findings, calling for a thorough investigation of the key factors (i.e., metrics applied, habitat type, scale, and temporal effects) and conditions under which such a relationship exists. This study investigates the applicability of the SVH for monitoring plant diversity at the landscape scale by comparing the performance of three types of SD metrics. Species richness and functional diversity were calculated for >2000 grid cells of 5′ × 3′ covering the Czech Republic. Within each cell, we quantified SD using a Landsat-8 “greenest pixel” composite by applying (i) the standard deviation of NDVI, (ii) Rao’s Q entropy index and (iii) the richness of “spectral communities”. Habitat type (i.e., land cover) was included in the models of the relationship between SD and ground biodiversity. Both species richness and functional diversity showed positive and significant relationships with each SD metric tested. However, SD alone accounted for a small fraction of the deviance explained by the models. Furthermore, the strength of the rela­ tionship depended significantly on habitat type and was highest in natural areas with transitional bushy and herbaceous vegetation. Our results underline that despite the stability of the significance of the relationship between SD and plant diversity at this scale, the applicability of SD for biodiversity monitoring is context- dependent and the factors mediating such a relationship must be carefully considered to avoid misleading conclusions.

Biodiversity monitoring and assessment are essential for establishing population trends and status, and the causes of declines in abundance and occupancy within protected areas. However, biodiversity monitoring and assessment are rarely done in developing countries because of funding and other logistic constraints. This study assessed the small mammal (rodents and shrews ≤ 200 g) species composition and diversity in the Shai Hills Resource reserve with the aim of establishing baseline data for regular monitoring. The small mammals were live-trapped using Sherman and Pitfall traps. A trapping effort of 1,080 Sherman trap-nights and 360 Pitfall trap-nights yielded 36 individuals belonging to two orders (Rodentia and Eulipotyphla) and nine species. Five new species, including two shrews Crocidura olivieri and C. crossei, and three rodents Mus muscules, Mastomys natalensis and Arvicanthis rufinus were added to the known small mammal species in the reserve. Uranomys ruddi was the most abundant species. All the species that were captured are listed as ‘Least Concern’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and are under no form of protection nationally. The results of this study provide crucial baseline data to the park managers to monitor the population dynamics and changes in the community composition of small mammal in the SHRR and evaluate the impact of management actions on the small mammal biodiversity in the reserve. This can improve their understanding of conservation needs and guide the development of effective habitat management strategy.

Marine mammals in the North Atlantic have experienced severe depletions due to overexploitation. While some species and populations have now recovered, there are numerous other anthropogenic activities impacting their North Atlantic ecosystem. Studying marine mammals is often associated with logistical challenges, and many species have an elusive nature, resulting in substantial knowledge gaps on the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine mammals in the North Atlantic. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging tool in biodiversity monitoring and has successfully been demonstrated to complement traditional monitoring methods for a wide range of marine taxonomic groups. The promising potential of seawater eDNA is owe to advances within an array of molecular methods used to extract, detect and/or sequence the genetic material of marine organisms from a single seawater sample. We present a literature review of eDNA studies of marine mammals and discuss the potential applications and practical challenges of eDNA in marine mammal research, management and conservation. Environmental DNA has already been introduced to a wide range of applications within marine mammal science, from detection of endangered species to population genetic assessments. Furthermore, eDNA has the power to capture other biologically important species in the marine ecosystem and food web, which could facilitate insight into the spatiotemporal variation of different marine communities in a changing environment. With methodological and technological standardization, eDNA based approaches have a promising potential to be integrated into regular monitoring practices and management strategies.

Despite their negative environmental impacts, human-modified environments such as agricultural and urban landscapes can have a relevant role on biodiversity conservation as complements of protected areas. Such anthropized landscapes may have endangered, valuable, and nuisance species, although most of them do not fit in any of these categories. Therefore, in such environments we must deal with the same decision-making process concerning the same possible interventions proposed by Caughley (1994) to wildlife management, which are related to biological conservation, sustainable use, control/coexistence, and monitoring. Such decision-making process should be based on good science and good governance. On such context, the first step should be to implement multifunctional landscapes, which keep their primary mission of human use, but incorporate a second but fundamental mission of biological conservation. In this study we present a summary of the research carried out at the Biota Program of Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) in this field since the late 1990's and propose priorities for biodiversity research and governance in multifunctional landscapes for the near future. Resumo Apesar de seus impactos ambientais negativos, ambientes modificados pelo homem, como paisagens agrícolas e urbanas, podem ter um papel relevante na conservação da biodiversidade como complementos de áreas protegidas. Tais paisagens antropizadas podem ter espécies ameaçadas, valiosas e incômodas, embora a maioria delas não se enquadre em nenhuma dessas categorias. Portanto, em tais ambientes devemos lidar com o mesmo processo de tomada de decisão sobre as mesmas possíveis intervenções propostas por Caughley (1994) para o manejo da vida selvagem, que estão relacionadas à conservação biológica, uso sustentável, controle/coexistência e monitoramento. Esse processo de tomada de decisão deve ser baseado em boa ciência e boa governança. Neste contexto, o primeiro passo deverá ser a implementação de paisagens multifuncionais, que mantenham a sua missão primordial de uso humano, mas que incorporem uma segunda, mas fundamental missão de conservação biológica. Neste estudo apresentamos um resumo das pesquisas realizadas no Programa Biota da Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) neste campo desde o final da década de 1990 e propomos prioridades para pesquisa e governança da biodiversidade em paisagens multifuncionais para o futuro próximo.

Agroecosystems have gained a dominant positionon worldwide land-usage, and therefore preserving their biodiversity is crucial for environmental sustainability. Ants are one of the most widespread groups of terrestrial arthropods, and,thanks to their significant diversification,they are considered as a good proxy group for bio-diversity monitoring, also in agroecosystems. Vineyards are economically valuable cultures widespread worldwide,and hosting many ant species, that provide meaningful ecosystem services and disservices. Despite the important role that ants play in these agroecosystems, ant biodiversity in vineyards is still poorly studied, especially in Italy. In this context, we present a first detailed quantitative and qualitative assessment of the ant fauna of Italian vineyards from the Adige Valley based on pitfall traps data, and discuss the results in comparison with the few other similar assessments from Europe and other continents. We document anassemblage of 22 species (7-16 per or-chard), mostly dominated by three disturbance-tolerant species (including an introduced species). Vineyards’ ant faunas appear to be rather heterogeneous worldwide, mainly following local ecological and biogeographical constraints, and the role that most ant species play in these agroecosystems is presently unknown.

Accurate biodiversity and population monitoring is a requirement for effective conservation decision making. Survey method bias is therefore a concern, particularly when research programs face logistical and cost limitations.We employed point counts (PCs) and autonomous recording units (ARUs) to survey avian biodiversity within comparable, high elevation, temperate mountain habitats at opposite ends of the Americas: nine mountains in British Columbia (BC), Canada, and 10 in southern Chile. We compared detected species richness against multiyear species inventories and examined method‐specific detection probability by family. By incorporating time costs, we assessed the performance and efficiency of single versus combined methods.Species accumulation curves indicate ARUs can capture ~93% of species present in BC but only ~58% in Chile, despite Chilean mountain communities being less diverse. The avian community, rather than landscape composition, appears to drive this dramatic difference. Chilean communities contain less‐vocal species, which ARUs missed. Further, 6/13 families in BC were better detected by ARUs, while 11/11 families in Chile were better detected by PCs. Where survey conditions differentially impacted method performance, PCs mostly varied over the morning and with canopy cover in BC, while ARUs mostly varied seasonally in Chile. Within a single year of monitoring, neither method alone was predicted to capture the full avian community, with the exception of ARUs in the alpine and subalpine of BC. PCs contributed little to detected diversity in BC, but including this method resulted in negligible increases in total time costs. Combining PCs with ARUs in Chile significantly increased species detections, again, for little cost.Combined methods were among the most efficient and accurate approaches to capturing diversity. We recommend conducting point counts, while ARUs are being deployed and retrieved in order to capture additional diversity with minimal additional effort and to flag methodological biases using a comparative framework., Using avian surveys conducted in comparable, high elevation, temperate mountain habitats at opposite ends of the Americas (British Columbia, Canada, and southern Chile), we show combined ARU and point count methods are among the most efficient and accurate approaches to capturing diversity. ARUs were predicted to capture ~93% of species present in British Columbia but only ~58% in Chile, despite Chilean mountain communities being less diverse. The use of combined methods enable studies to flag methodological biases using a comparative framework.

International audience; Building accurate knowledge of the identity, the geographic distribution and the evolution of species is essential for the sustainable development of humanity, as well as for biodiversity conservation. However, the difficulty of identifying plants, animals and fungi is hindering the aggregation of new data and knowledge. Identifying and naming living organisms is almost impossible for the general public and is often difficult even for professionals and naturalists. Bridging this gap is a key step towards enabling effective biodiversity monitoring systems. The LifeCLEF campaign, presented in this paper, has been promoting and evaluating advances in this domain since 2011. The 2022 edition proposes five data-oriented challenges related to the identification and prediction of biodiversity: (i) PlantCLEF: very large-scale plant identification, (ii) BirdCLEF: bird species recognition in audio soundscapes, (iii) GeoLifeCLEF: remote sensing based prediction of species, (iv) SnakeCLEF: snake species identification on a global scale, and (v) FungiCLEF: fungi recognition as an open set classification problem. This paper overviews the motivation, methodology and main outcomes of that five challenges.

Biodiversity underlies ecosystem resilience, ecosystem function, sustainable economies, and human well-being. Understanding how biodiversity sustains ecosystems under anthropogenic stressors and global environmental change will require new ways of deriving and applying biodiversity data. A major challenge is that biodiversity data and knowledge are scattered, biased, collected with numerous methods, and stored in inconsistent ways. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) has developed the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) as fundamental metrics to help aggregate, harmonize, and interpret biodiversity observation data from diverse sources. Mapping and analyzing EBVs can help to evaluate how aspects of biodiversity are distributed geographically and how they change over time. EBVs are also intended to serve as inputs and validation to forecast the status and trends of biodiversity, and to support policy and decision making. Here, we assess the feasibility of implementing Genetic Composition EBVs (Genetic EBVs), which are metrics of within-species genetic variation. We review and bring together numerous areas of the field of genetics and evaluate how each contributes to global and regional genetic biodiversity monitoring with respect to theory, sampling logistics, metadata, archiving, data aggregation, modeling, and technological advances. We propose four Genetic EBVs: (i) Genetic Diversity; (ii) Genetic Differentiation; (iii) Inbreeding; and (iv) Effective Population Size (Ne ). We rank Genetic EBVs according to their relevance, sensitivity to change, generalizability, scalability, feasibility and data availability. We outline the workflow for generating genetic data underlying the Genetic EBVs, and review advances and needs in archiving genetic composition data and metadata. We discuss how Genetic EBVs can be operationalized by visualizing EBVs in space and time across species and by forecasting Genetic EBVs beyond current observations using various modeling approaches. Our review then explores challenges of aggregation, standardization, and costs of operationalizing the Genetic EBVs, as well as future directions and opportunities to maximize their uptake globally in research and policy. The collection, annotation, and availability of genetic data has made major advances in the past decade, each of which contributes to the practical and standardized framework for large-scale genetic observation reporting. Rapid advances in DNA sequencing technology present new opportunities, but also challenges for operationalizing Genetic EBVs for biodiversity monitoring regionally and globally. With these advances, genetic composition monitoring is starting to be integrated into global conservation policy, which can help support the foundation of all biodiversity and species' long-term persistence in the face of environmental change. We conclude with a summary of concrete steps for researchers and policy makers for advancing operationalization of Genetic EBVs. The technical and analytical foundations of Genetic EBVs are well developed, and conservation practitioners should anticipate their increasing application as efforts emerge to scale up genetic biodiversity monitoring regionally and globally. ispartof: BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS vol:97 issue:4 pages:1511-1538 ispartof: location:England status: published

The slow adoption by the agricultural sector of practices to promote biodiversity are thought to originate from three interrelated issues. First, we know little about which incentives effectively motivate farmers to integrate biodiversity into daily farm management. Second, few studies so far have produced evidence that biodiversity-based approaches produce benefits in terms of key variables for farmers (yield, profit). Third, there is a large communication gap between the scientists investigating biodiversity-based farming practices and the farmers who have to implement them. To overcome these barriers, SHOWCASE will review and test the effectiveness of a range of economic and societal incentives to implement biodiversity management in farming operations and examine farmer and public acceptance. Focus will be on three promising approaches: (i) result-based incentives, (ii) involvement in citizen science biodiversity monitoring and (iii) biodiversity-based business models. SHOWCASE will co-produce together with stakeholders solid interdisciplinary evidence for the agro-ecological and socio-economic benefits of biodiversity management in 10 contrasting farming systems across Europe. SHOWCASE will also design communication strategies that are tailor-made to farmers and other key stakeholders operating in different socio-economic and environmental conditions. SHOWCASE will develop a multi-actor network of 10 Experimental Biodiversity Areas in contrasting European farming systems that will be used for in-situ research on biodiversity incentives and evidence for benefits as well as knowledge exchange. This network will be used to identify and test biodiversity indicators and targets relevant to all stakeholders and use them in a learning-by-doing approach to improve benefits of biodiversity management on farms, both within the network and beyond.

Anthropogenic activities and climate change are affecting marine ecosystems world‐wide, but systematic biodiversity assessments through periodic biomonitoring can be challenging and costly. Local ecological knowledge (LEK), obtained from experienced residents, can complement other approaches and provide improved understanding of the conservation status of marine areas. Here we explore the value and limitations of LEK to assess the status of several flagship species of tourism interest: cetaceans, sea turtles, whale sharks and sea snakes in a unique tropical fiord and biodiversity hotspot, Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica. We analysed the interviews conducted with fishermen and tour boat guides in 2010 and 2020 and compared their responses to biomonitoring data obtained through boat‐based sighting surveys during the same two time periods. Our questionnaire asked for the estimates of sighting frequencies in both years, and in 2020 it also inquired about perceived changes over the time gap. A key limitation was that many interviewees from 2010 could not be relocated in 2020, though 13 repeat participants served as a panel. Their responses suggest shifts in abundance that vary across taxa. For example, changes in reported sighting frequencies from 2010 to 2020 indicate a possible decline in whales but an increase in sea snakes. Those changes were also reflected in our biomonitoring data, suggesting respondents were fairly accurate in their reports of current abundance. However, when asked about perceived changes over the decade we found their answers were not consistent with changes detected through their reported frequencies nor though biomonitoring. Our results suggest LEK can be a good source of information for current assessment but highlight the potential biases of perceptions of change. Evaluating changes through LEK may best be done by obtaining interview data at multiple points in time and systematically assessing trends, though, notably, there can be challenges with acquiring consistent sample sizes. Interviews should not replace but can complement biomonitoring while also providing further value via community engagement and as an avenue to gain insights into local opinions regarding conservation measures. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Freshwater mussels of the order Unionida are a widely distributed taxon that are important in maintaining freshwater ecosystems and are also highly imperiled throughout the world. Monitoring of mussel populations with environmental DNA (eDNA) is an attractive alternative to traditional methods because it is noninvasive and requires less labor and taxonomic knowledge from field personnel. We developed eDNA metabarcoding assays specific to freshwater mussels and tested them at six sites in the Clinch River, located in the southeastern United States. Our objective was to determine the utility of eDNA metabarcoding for future monitoring of mussel populations and restoration efforts in this watershed. Two metabarcoding assays that target the mitochondrial DNA regions of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and NADH dehydrogenase subunit (ND1) genes were developed and tested. Our assays appear to be order specific, amplifying members from the two families found in North America, Unionidae and Margaritiferidae, while not amplifying nontarget fish or other bivalve species. From the field collected samples, our assays together detected 19 species, eight of which are listed as federally endangered. The assays also detected 42%, 58%, and 54% of the species identified by recent quantitative visual mussel surveys at three sampling sites. Increased sampling effort by processing a greater water volume or number of samples will likely increase species detections. These eDNA metabarcoding assays may enable enhanced monitoring of freshwater mussel assemblages and subsequently inform conservation efforts.

An environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding approach has been widely used for biodiversity monitoring of fishes, although it has rarely been applied to tropical and subtropical aquatic ecosystems, where species diversity is remarkably high. This study examined the extent to which species richness can be estimated in a small coral reef lagoon (1,500 × 900 m) near Okinawa Island, southern Japan, where the surrounding waters are likely to harbor more than 1,500 species of fish. During 2015–2017, a total of 16 capture‐based surveys were conducted to create a faunal list of fish species, followed by eDNA metabarcoding based on seawater samples taken from 11 sites in the lagoon on a day in May 2019. We also tested whether eDNA metabarcoding could detect differences between adjacent fish communities inhabiting the offshore reef edge and shore‐side seagrass beds within the lagoon. A total of 217 fish species were confirmed by the capture‐based samplings, while 291 fish species were detected by eDNA metabarcoding, identifying a total of 410 species distributed across 119 families and 193 genera. Of these 410 species, only 96 (24% of the total) were commonly identified by both methods, indicating that capture‐based surveys failed to collect a number of species detected by eDNA metabarcoding. Interestingly, two different approaches to estimate species richness based on eDNA data yielded values close to the 410 species, including one that suggested an additional three or more eDNA surveys from 11 sites (36 samples) would detect 90% of the 410 species. In addition, nonmetric multidimensional scaling for fish assemblages clearly distinguished between the fish communities of the offshore reef edge and those of the shore‐side seagrass beds. This study demonstrates that an eDNA metabarcoding approach is useful for estimating species richness and detection of habitat segregation even in ecosystems with remarkably high species diversity.

Due to anthropogenic impact, more and more species are currently threatened. In order to detect this biodiversity loss, continuous and spatially distributed data of the fauna and further phenomena is needed. To gather such data, we have developed a Multi-Sensor-Feeder, which can be built up by every citizen. With a camera and a weight sensor, the feeder detects visiting animals, especially birds, and analyzes the species through AI. Further the feeder is equipped with different sensors like a thermometer, to gather complementary environmental data. The feeder is affordable and easy to reproduce by following a free manual, so that all citizens can explore the biodiversity at their place. Collected data is automatically analyzed and openly published in real-time and thus inspectable and downloadable for both researchers and citizens. With the poster, we suggest a way, how citizens can make an essential contribution to solve one of the world's current challenges.

People make an important contribution to the study and management of biological invasions, as many monitoring and control projects rely heavily on volunteer assistance. Understanding the reasons why people participate in such projects is critical for successful recruitment and retention of volunteers. We used a meta-synthesis approach to extract, analyze and synthesize the available information from 28 selected studies investigating motivations of volunteers to engage in monitoring and control of invasive alien species (IAS). Our findings show how motivations fit three broad themes, reflecting environmental concerns, social motivations, and personal reasons. An important outcome of this study is the description of motivations that are unique to the IAS context: supporting IAS management, protecting native species and habitats, and livelihood/food/income protection or opportunities. In addition, our study reflects on important methodological choices for investigating volunteer motivations as well as ethical issues that may arise in practice. We conclude with a set of recommendations for project design and future research on volunteer motivations in IAS contexts, emphasizing the importance of collaboration with social scientists.

People make an important contribution to the study and management of biological invasions, as many monitoring and control projects rely heavily on volunteer assistance. Understanding the reasons why people participate in such projects is critical for successful recruitment and retention of volunteers. We used a meta-synthesis approach to extract, analyze and synthesize the available information from 28 selected studies investigating motivations of volunteers to engage in monitoring and control of invasive alien species (IAS). Our findings show how motivations fit three broad themes, reflecting environmental concerns, social motivations, and personal reasons. An important outcome of this study is the description of motivations that are unique to the IAS context: supporting IAS management, protecting native species and habitats, and livelihood/food/income protection or opportunities. In addition, our study reflects on important methodological choices for investigating volunteer motivations as well as ethical issues that may arise in practice. We conclude with a set of recommendations for project design and future research on volunteer motivations in IAS contexts, emphasizing the importance of collaboration with social scientists.

To accelerate the monitoring and counting of biodiversity of various species, there is a need for automating the process of computing biodiversity. The calculations of the alpha and beta biodiversity indexes are fundamental for the analysis of ecological and biodiversity studies. Sukhna and Dhanas lakes, India are critical for the maintenance of the health of the residents and aquatic life thriving in them. Both lakes are prone to pollution. Due to these factors, there is a need for building digitized infrastructure for monitoring the health of these lakes. Hence in this research work, an automated algorithm has been devised for the computation of biodiversity of microorganisms. The work focuses on the surface water of both these lakes. The automation of biodiversity computation is done with image processing algorithms and is applied to the primary data collected. From this study, it is apparent that the counting of microorganisms using image processing algorithms is an easier and efficient way for biodiversity studies as compared to the manual process of estimating the population of microbes. The results show that the species richness of Dhanas Lake is more as compared to Sukhna Lake. The dissimilarity between the two lakes is five species as per the primary data collected. This shows that the biodiversity of Dhanas Lake is better than the Sukhna Lake but it is prone to harmful algal blooms. This may be attributed to the fact that Dhanas Lake may have multiple sources of pollution that need to be identified.

The natural sciences include the life and physical sciences and study nature through observing and understanding phenomena, testing hypotheses, and performing experiments. Key principles such as reliability, validity, objectivity, and predictability are achieved through transparent assumptions, methods, data, and interpretations as well as multidisciplinarity. In this chapter we present insights into the genesis of citizen science in the natural sciences and reflect on the intellectual history of the natural sciences in relation to citizen science today. Further, we consider the current scientific approaches and achievements of natural science projects, which are applying citizen science to address empirical and/or theoretical research, focusing on monitoring programmes. Presenting examples and case studies, we focus on the key characteristics of the scientific inquiries being investigated in the natural sciences through citizen science. Finally, we discuss the consequences of engagement in scientific processes in relation to the future of natural scientists in a complex world.

Incidental detection of species of concern (e.g., invasive species, pathogens, threatened and endangered species) during biodiversity assessments based on high‐throughput DNA sequencing holds significant risks in the absence of rigorous, fit‐for‐purpose data quality and reporting standards. Molecular biodiversity data are predominantly collected for ecological studies and thus are generated to common quality assurance standards. However, the detection of certain species of concern in these data would likely elicit interest from end users working in biosecurity or other surveillance contexts (e.g., pathogen detection in health‐related fields), for which more stringent quality control standards are essential to ensure that data are suitable for informing decision‐making and can withstand legal or political challenges. We suggest here that data quality and reporting criteria are urgently needed to enable clear identification of those studies that may be appropriately applied to surveillance contexts. In the interim, more pointed disclaimers on uncertainties associated with the detection and identification of species of concern may be warranted in published studies. This is not only to ensure the utility of molecular biodiversity data for consumers, but also to protect data generators from uncritical and potentially ill‐advised application of their science in decision‐making.

Conserving biodiversity in the face of ever-increasing human pressure is hampered by our lack of basic information on species occurrence, distribution, abundance, habitat requirements, and threats. Obtaining this information requires efficient and sensitive methods capable of detecting and quantifying true occurrence and diversity, including rare, cryptic and elusive species. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging technique that can increase our ability to detect and quantify biodiversity, by overcoming some of the challenges of labor-intensive traditional surveys. The application of eDNA in ecology and conservation has grown enormously in recent years, but without a concurrent growth in appreciation of its strengths and limitations. In many situations, eDNA may either not work, or it may work but not provide the information needed. Problems with (1) imperfect detection, (2) abundance quantification, (3) taxonomic assignment, (4) eDNA spatial and temporal dynamics, (5) data analysis and interpretation, and (6) assessing ecological status have all been significant. The technique has often been used without a careful evaluation of the technical challenges and complexities involved, and a determination made that eDNA is the appropriate method for the species or environment of interest. It is therefore important to evaluate the scope and relevance of eDNA-based studies, and to identify critical considerations that need to be taken into account before using the approach. We review and synthesize eDNA studies published to date to highlight the opportunities and limitations of utilizing eDNA in ecology and conservation. We identify potential ways of reducing limitations in eDNA analysis, and demonstrate how eDNA and traditional surveys can complement each other.

Spatial grain of studies of communities is often based on arbitrary convention. Few studies have examined how spatial scaling of grain size affects estimates of compositional change over time, despite its broad implications.Fish assemblage structure was compared between 1974 and 2014 at 33 sampling locations in the Muddy Boggy River drainage, USA. The two main objectives for this comparison were to quantify change in assemblage structure and to test for a relationship between compositional change and spatial scale. Spatial scale was manipulated by pooling assemblage data into a continuous range of groups, which increased in size from K = 33 pairs (i.e., local scale) to K = 1 pair (i.e., global scale), via clustering algorithm based on pair‐wise fluvial distance.Local assemblages (stream reaches) varied in the degree of assemblage change over time (range = 0.10–0.99 dissimilarity; mean = 0.66). The global assemblage (drainage), however, remained relatively similar. A discontinuity in the relationship between compositional change and spatial scale occurred at K = 15 (mean dissimilarity = 0.56; p = .062), and this grouping is roughly the size of the headwater/tributary drainages (i.e., stream order ≤ 3) in the study system.Spatial scale can impact estimates of biodiversity change over time. These results suggest assemblages are more dynamic at individual stream reaches than at the scale of the entire drainage. The decline in assemblage change at the spatial scale of K = 15 deserves further attention given the marginal significance, despite a small sample size (n = 15). This pattern could suggest regional and meta‐community processes become more important in shaping assemblage dynamics at the scale of headwater drainages, whereas the factors responsible for driving individual stream reach dynamics (e.g., stochasticity) become less important. Defining assemblages at a larger scale will result in different estimates of species persistence. Biodiversity monitoring efforts must take the effect of spatial scaling into consideration., Estimates of stream fish assemblage change between two sampling periods 40 years apart were influenced by the spatial scale used to define assemblage size.

Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are finalizing a new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to more effectively guide efforts by the world’s nations to address global loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Each party is required to mainstream the new framework and its component targets into national conservation strategies. To date, such strategies have been criticized as largely aspirational and lacking clear linkages to national policy mechanisms, which has contributed to the world’s general failure to meet the Convention’s previous targets. We use the United States and European Union as examples to compare and contrast opportunities and barriers for mainstreaming the GBF more effectively into policy. The European Union and United States have unique relationships to the Convention, the former being the only supranational party and the latter, having signed but never ratified the treaty, adopting Convention targets on an ad hoc basis. The contrasting conservation policy frameworks of these two polities illustrate several conceptual issues central to biodiversity conservation and demonstrate how insights from the GBF can strengthen biodiversity policy even in atypical contexts. We focus on three characteristics of the GBF which are essential if policy is to effectively motivate and guide efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss: comprehensiveness, coherence, and ambition. Statutes in both the United States and European Union provide a strong foundation for mainstreaming the GBF’s comprehensiveness, coherence, and ambition, but policy development and implementation falls short. We identify six common themes among the reforms needed to successfully achieve targets for reversing biodiversity loss: broadening conservation focus to all levels of biodiversity, better coordinating conservation strategies that protect sites and landscapes with those focused on biodiversity elements (e.g., species), coordinating biodiversity conservation with efforts to safeguard ecosystem services including ecosystem-based climate mitigation and adaptation, more coherent scaling of targets from global to local extents, adoption of a more ambitious vision for recovery of biodiversity, and development of effective tracking and accountability mechanisms.

Invited presentation for the OEAD workshop: PH Fortbildung Citizen Science award 2022 Outline of the project Our Planetary Garden / Unser planetarischer Garten

Invited presentation for the OEAD workshop: PH Fortbildung Citizen Science award 2022 Outline of the project Our Planetary Garden / Unser planetarischer Garten

Diversity responses to climatic factors in plant communities are well understood from experiments, but less known in natural conditions due to the rarity of appropriate long-term observational data. In this paper, we use long-term transect data sampled annually in three natural grasslands of different species pools, soils, landscape contexts and land use histories. Analyzing these specific belt transect data of contiguous small sampling units enabled us to explore scale dependence and spatial synchrony of diversity patterns within and among sites. The 14-year study period covered several droughts, including one extreme event between 2011 and 2012. We demonstrated that all natural grasslands responded to droughts by considerable fluctuations of diversity, but, overall, they remained stable. The plant functional group of annuals showed high resilience at all sites, while perennials were resistant to droughts. Our results were robust to changing spatial scales of observations, and we also demonstrated that within-site spatial synchrony could be used as a sensitive indicator of external climatic effects. We propose the broad application of high-resolution belt transects for powerful and adaptive vegetation monitoring in the future.

Biodiversity monitoring is important for the conservation of natural ecosystems in general, but particularly for amphibians, whose populations are pronouncedly declining. However, amphibians’ ecological traits (e.g. nocturnal or aquatic) often prevent their precise monitoring. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding – analysis of extra-organismal DNA released into the environment – allows the easy and effective monitoring of the biodiversity of aquatic organisms. Here, we developed and tested the utility of original PCR primer sets. First, we conducted in vitro PCR amplification tests with universal primer candidates using total DNA extracted from amphibian tissues. Five primer sets successfully amplified the target DNA fragments (partial 16S rRNA gene fragments of 160–311 bp) from all 16 taxa tested (from the three living amphibian orders Anura, Caudata and Gymnophiona). Next, we investigated the taxonomic resolution retrieved using each primer set. The results revealed that the universal primer set “Amph16S” had the highest resolution amongst the tested sets. Finally, we applied Amph16S to the water samples collected in the field and evaluated its detection capability by comparing the species detected using eDNA and physical survey (capture-based sampling and visual survey) in multiple agricultural ecosystems across Japan (160 sites in 10 areas). The eDNA metabarcoding with Amph16S detected twice as many species as the physical surveys (16 vs. 8 species, respectively), indicating the effectiveness of Amph16S in biodiversity monitoring and ecological research for amphibian communities., 水をくむだけの新しい両生類の調査法. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-02-22.

Die in den letzten Jahren beobachteten raschen Veränderungen der Biosphäre werden sowohl durch kleine als auch durch großräumige Faktoren verursacht, wie z. B. Temperaturverschiebungen, Veränderungen in der Landnutzung oder Veränderungen im Energiehaushalt der Systeme. Während sich die letztgenannten Prozesse leicht quantifizieren lassen, ist es schwieriger, den Verlust an biologischer Vielfalt und Gemeinschaftsstrukturen zu dokumentieren. Veränderungen in der Abundanz und Vielfalt von Organismen werden kaum dokumentiert. Zählungen von Arten sind in der Regel lückenhaft und werden durch einfache, räumlich, zeitlich und ökologisch oft unbefriedigende Artenlisten für einzelne Untersuchungsgebiete abgeleitet. So bleiben schädliche globale Prozesse und ihre Triebkräfte oft unentdeckt. Ein Haupthindernis für die Überwachung der Artenvielfalt ist der Mangel an taxonomischem Fachwissen, das für großflächige und feingranulare Bewertungen unbedingt erforderlich ist. Ein weiteres Hindernis ist der hohe Personalaufwand und die damit verbundenen Kosten, die für die Erfassung großer Gebiete erforderlich sind, oder die Unzugänglichkeit entlegener, aber dennoch betroffener Gebiete. Um diese Einschränkungen zu überwinden, schlagen wir ein Netz von automatisierten Multisensor-Stationen zur Überwachung der Artenvielfalt (AMMODs) vor, das den Weg für eine neue Generation von Zentren zur Bewertung der biologischen Vielfalt ebnen soll. Dieses Netzwerk kombiniert Spitzentechnologien mit Biodiversitätsinformatik und Expertensystemen, die das Expertenwissen bewahren. Jede AMMOD-Station kombiniert autonome Probennehmer für Insekten, Pollen und Sporen, Audiorekorder für lautäußernde Tiere, Sensoren für flüchtige organische Verbindungen, die von Pflanzen emittiert werden (pVOC), und Kamerafallen für Säugetiere und kleine Wirbellose. AMMODs sind weitgehend eigenständig und können die Daten vor der Übertragung an die Empfangsstationen zur Speicherung, Integration und Analyse vorverarbeiten (z. B. zur Rauschfilterung). Die Installation an schwer zugänglichen Standorten erfordert ein ausgeklügeltes und anspruchsvolles Systemdesign mit einem optimalen Gleichgewicht zwischen Energiebedarf, Bandbreite für die Datenübertragung, erforderlichem Service und Betrieb unter allen Umweltbedingungen über Jahre hinweg. Eine wichtige Voraussetzung für die automatische Artenbestimmung sind Datenbanken mit DNA-Barcodes, Tierlauten, pVOCs und Bildern, die als Trainingsdaten für die automatische Artenbestimmung dienen. AMMOD-Stationen werden somit zu einer Schlüsselkomponente, um die Überwachung der biologischen Vielfalt für Forschung und Politik voranzutreiben, indem sie Daten zur biologischen Vielfalt mit einer noch nie dagewesenen räumlichen und zeitlichen Auflösung liefern. Rapid changes of the biosphere observed in recent years are caused by both small and large scale drivers, like shifts in temperature, transformations in land-use, or changes in the energy budget of systems. While the latter processes are easily quantifiable, documentation of the loss of biodiversity and community structure is more difficult. Changes in organismal abundance and diversity are barely documented. Censuses of species are usually fragmentary and inferred by often spatially, temporally and ecologically unsatisfactory simple species lists for individual study sites. Thus, detrimental global processes and their drivers often remain unrevealed. A major impediment to monitoring species diversity is the lack of human taxonomic expertise that is implicitly required for large-scale and fine-grained assessments. Another is the large amount of personnel and associated costs needed to cover large scales, or the inaccessibility of remote but nonetheless affected areas. To overcome these limitations we propose a network of Automated Multisensor stations for Monitoring of species Diversity (AMMODs) to pave the way for a new generation of biodiversity assessment centers. This network combines cutting-edge technologies with biodiversity informatics and expert systems that conserve expert knowledge. Each AMMOD station combines autonomous samplers for insects, pollen and spores, audio recorders for vocalizing animals, sensors for volatile organic compounds emitted by plants (pVOCs) and camera traps for mammals and small invertebrates. AMMODs are largely self-containing and have the ability to pre-process data (e.g. for noise filtering) prior to transmission to receiver stations for storage, integration and analyses. Installation on sites that are difficult to access require a sophisticated and challenging system design with optimum balance between power requirements, bandwidth for data transmission, required service, and operation under all environmental conditions for years. An important prerequisite for automated species identification are databases of DNA barcodes, animal sounds, for pVOCs, and images used as training data for automated species identification. AMMOD stations thus become a key component to advance the field of biodiversity monitoring for research and policy by delivering biodiversity data at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)

This report was researched and written between April and December 2021 by researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), with support from partners at the University of Reading (UK), De Vlinderstichting (Netherlands), and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France). The report consists of a review of existing 'citizen science’ approaches to monitoring biodiversity on farmland, in which we introduce a typology of five different types of approach, and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of these. This forms part of the project “SHOWCASing synergies between agriculture, biodiversity and Ecosystem services to help farmers capitalising on native biodiversity” (SHOWCASE). SHOWCASE aims to encourage the widespread uptake of biodiversity-friendly farming practices across Europe, both through identifying effective incentives for farmers, and gathering further evidence of the ecosystem services provided by increased levels of biodiversity. The project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No.862480. In particular, this report fulfils Deliverable 3.8 within SHOWCASE: “A review of existing citizen science approaches to monitoring farmland biodiversity, including an overview of the different statistical approaches to handling citizen science data”. We at SLU are grateful to all SHOWCASE partners for their contributions.

Communication, dissemination and exploitation play a vital role within SHOWCASE as the main means of ensuring knowledge transfer and uptake of results during the project lifetime and after the project is concluded. The project’s strategic objectives and target groups, as well as the key messages and narratives that the project aims to communicate serve as an orientation in the project’s actions in the relevant field. The current Plan for Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR) has been developed to define target-specific objectives and outline concrete implementation actions.The SHOWCASE PEDR represents a document that aims to guide the communication and dissemination efforts to target project-relevant audiences, convey clear, understandable, coordinated and effective messages, and reach out project results to all interested parties within the various stakeholder groups.The plan presents the different communication and dissemination tools, structured in an implementation plan according to the different target groups and different stage of development of the project. It also provides a list of tailored key performance indicators (KPI) for the project’s outreach activities that aim to provide a means to quantitatively monitor the effectiveness of dissemination activities. Indicative time schedule for implementation and updates is provided.In addition, this document will identify key project results, which will be a subject of exploitation.

Premio extraordinario de Trabajo Fin de Máster curso 2020/2021. Máster en Gestión Ambiental y Biodiversidad Actualmente, sufrimos una crisis medioambiental debida a la sexta extinción masiva de especies y pérdida de hábitats que está siendo potenciada por la acción humana. El monitoreo de biodiversidad exsitu es la herramienta alternativa a los métodos convencionales basados en procesos más estáticos y menos rentables. Por tanto, se necesitan herramientas más efectivas e informativas que deben ir respaldando las políticas encaminadas a frenar este problema. En este trabajo se utiliza una metodología menos costosa y más efectiva que combina la modelación de nicho ecológico (basada en el índice de disponibilidad de hábitat - HSI) con datos de series de tiempo a partir de la teledetección satelital. El objetivo principal es estimar las fluctuaciones (tendencias) de los hábitats de especies amenazadas y emblemáticas de diferentes grupos taxonómicos en Andalucía en las últimas dos décadas (periodo 2001-2019). Para la calibración de los modelos de hábitat, fueron usados diferentes productos de teledetección derivados del sensor MODIS a una resolución de píxel de 5x5km. En general, los modelos presentaron un rendimiento muy bueno (AUC entre 0.75 y 1) prediciendo un 60% de los píxeles con tendencia de hábitat negativa entre todas las especies, poniendo de manifiesto la degradación en sus hábitats en las últimas décadas. Entre las especies más afectadas, destacan Alytes dickhilleni (anfibio) y Podarcis carbonelli (reptil) ambos endemismos Ibero-Andaluces cuyo hábitat natural se encuentra claramente en retroceso. Las variables predictoras que más contribuyeron a los modelos están relacionadas con la composición y estructura de la vegetación (LC) y con el clima y el balance energético (ET y LST), coincidiendo en muchos casos con la ecología de las especies. Esta metodología constituye una herramienta prometedora de alerta temprana para respaldar los protocolos de gestión y conservación de especies amenazadas, y ayuda a anticipar así el proceso de toma de decisiones. Currently, we are living an environmental crisis due to the sixth mass species extinction and habitats loss that is being caused by human action. The ex-situ biodiversity montoring is an alternative tool to conventional methods based on more static and less profitable processes. Therefore, more effective and informative tools are needed that must be supporting the decisive politics. In this work a cost-effective and more efficient methodology is used by combining the ecological niche models (based on the habitat suitability index – HSI) with satellite remote sensing time series data. The work main purpose is to estimate the habitat trends of threatened and emblematic species of different taxonomic groups in Andalusia in the last two decades (2001 – 2019 period). To the calibration of the habitat models, several remote sensing products from MODIS sensor at 5x5km of pixel resolution were used. In general, the models showed a high performance (AUC values between 0.75 and 1), predicting the 60% of the negative trends of the habitat suitability for the total species, showing a habitat regression in the last decades. Among the most affected species, Alytes dickhilleni (amphibian) and Podarcis carbonelli (reptile) stand out, both Ibero-Andalusian endemism whose natural habitat is clearly in decline. The predictor variables that contributed the most were related to the composition and structure vegetation (LC) and with climate and energy balance (ET and LST), marching in mostly of the cases with the species ecology. This methodology represents a promising early warning tool to support management and conservation protocols for threatened species, and thus helps to anticipate the decision-making processes.

SHOWCASE’s first step is to create a European network of local Experimental Biodiversity Areas (EBAs), that will be used to co-develop (though to varying degrees) and test successful strategies for better integrating biodiversity into farming. EBAs are located across a wide range of agro-ecosystems and represent farming systems undergoing both intensification as well as agricultural abandonment. Rather than creating new sites for the network, the approach in SHOWCASE was that EBAs would be developed mostly from existing collaborations between scientists and practitioners. The first work Package of SHOWCASE, WP1, has built in the 10 countries an experimental and knowledge exchange network in agricultural landscapes across Europe. Existing collaborations include LTSER platforms from eLTER RI, farmer cooperatives, farming research organisations and conservation organisations. These are well-established multi-actor networks already undertaking knowledge exchange, participatory research and innovation activities. Then, participatory approaches with farmers, administrators and other stakeholders are defining operational biodiversity targets at field/farm/regional level by discussing the types and extents of biodiversity indicators that should be used. WP1 thus is building our EBA network, with each EBA serving both as a local testbed for developing and implementing novel interventions and as a knowledge exchange hub. This is a pan-European network of Experimental Biodiversity Areas. In these EBAs multi-actor communities (growers, extension workers, researchers, NGOs, citizens etc.) work together to co-develop, co-manage, co-monitor and co-evaluate biodiversity innovations to enhance farm production, wildlife protection, livelihood quality and resilience of social-ecological production systems. These multi-actor communities will i) identify and prioritise local or regional challenges of biodiversity-agricultural production trade-offs, and ii) co-formulate and test potential solutions. However, to add value at the European level and allow up- scaling and out-scaling of solutions, it is essential to have a common framework and set of core standardised methodologies and measures used by all EBAs. EBAs are expected to be somewhat representative of Europe, in terms of biogeography, farming system or agricultural intensification/abandonment. However, all EBAs are starting from different points. One main target was to develop the network of EBAs based on a core approach, though place-based, in order to provide local solutions to local challenges. A conceptual representation of an EBA is given below illustrating how each EBA will be the fundamental base and operational platform integrating the various Tasks of WP1.

This document represents Deliverable 2.1 “Overview of regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms” within WP2 „Identifying incentives to promote biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes“ of the EU Horizon 2020 project SHOWCASE. It reports the outcomes of WP2 Task 2.1 “Evaluating regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms”.In the 1st and 2nd chapter, the report gives a short introduction of the deliverable’s objectives, the tasks addressed, the report’s outline and the main focus of the literature review.Chapter 3 gives an overview of the main laws governing biodiversity protection in the European Union. The main elements of the Birds and Habitats directives are presented, alongside other biodiversity laws and policies, with a focus on the obligations and requirements they set on agriculture in order to protect European native wildlife. Chapter 3 also covers the features of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy that operate as a regulatory baseline for all beneficiaries of farm subsidies, i.e., cross-compliance and greening requirements under the current CAP and the new conditionality in the CAP 2023-2027.Chapter 4 gives an overview of economic and non-economic approaches potentially promoting farmers’ pro-biodiversity behaviour. Whereas economically oriented approaches imply positive or negative monetary flows – compensation payments or rewards vs. penalties – to motivate farmers to implement biodiversity-friendly management practices or to prevent them from harming biodiversity, partnerships and networks steer farmers’ behaviour through agreeing on a common goal and working towards it by sharing resources, skills and risk. With regards to the agricultural focus of SHOWCASE, Chapter 4 looks in more detail at the incentives provided by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union. This covers both the current and future CAP, with an overview of how the novel eco-schemes can provide new incentives for farmers to adopt biodiversity friendly practices.Chapter 5 looks into how the combination of regulatory frameworks and incentives operate in practice for farmers in the EU. To this end, grey literature and European Commission publications related to farming for biodiversity have been reviewed. A specific focus is set on biodiversity-friendly farming in Natura 2000 sites, as central exemplary areas of continuous and long-lasting efforts in biodiversity conservation. This is followed by revising some of the main conclusions from very recent grey literature assessing the successes and failures of the CAP in relation to biodiversity.Chapter 6 provides an overview of approaches that have already been implemented to incentivize farmers’ pro-biodiversity behaviour. Based on grey literature, various types of approaches – i. e. focusing on plot or farm level, land tenure or the entire value chain, building on organic farming or including market-based, value-based or measure-based mechanisms – were identified within the EBA countries, further EU member states and selected western countries outside the EU. In sum, 62 examples of pro-biodiversity schemes were included in the further analysis representing highly divergent incentivizing mechanisms and the most important agricultural systems of the EBAs as well as in consequence serving as an information platform for further EBA scheme design activities.Based on the preceding chapters and their focus on result-based approaches, Chapter 7 casts a critical eye on their suitability with regards to various regulatory, policy, social and administrative contexts also considering potential national differences. On the international level, WTO requirements such as Green Box rules are a limiting factor with regards to result- based payment modalities and thus scheme design. On the national and regional level, issues to be considered include long-term availability of funding, guaranteeing additionality if requested, stakeholders’ and decision-makers’ attitudes towards agri-environment-climate measures in general as well as towards result-oriented approaches specifically, availability of suitable indicators and IT-systems, access to extension services and profound know-how of farmers and public authorities regarding the interlinkages between biodiversity and farming practices. On individual level, farmers’ trust in involved institutions and their willingness to participate are additionally discussed as highly relevant factors affecting the suitability of result- based approaches.In Chapter 8 a structured overview on factors influencing farmers’ willingness to promote biodiversity by implementing voluntary biodiversity measures is presented. Based on the review of scientific literature, the chapter describes several determinants which have been identified along three scales, i.e. 1) society, community and landscape, 2) farm scale, and 3) farmers’ intrinsic factors. The main influencing factors at the first scale range from the design of policies, to economic aspects, to socio-cultural norms. The second scale encompasses relevant farm characteristics, such as farm type and size to field conditions. For the farmers’ intrinsic factors age, education, experience, and self-identity play an important role. However, it is important to make a distinction between farmers’ willingness to participate in schemes and their actual behaviour, because the latter is determined by their ability to do so.Chapter 9 closes the Deliverable by giving an outlook on the further use of the results for scientific analyses within SHOWCASE, supporting mainly the work of designing interventions in WP1 and of developing surveys and model designs in WP2, as well as providing a basis for communication and policy recommendation material for WP4.

Metabarcoding is a tool to routinely identify species in environmental mass-samples and thereby analyze their species composition. Using metabarcoding techniques outperforms the traditional species identification by human experts in amount, speed and quality when well curated reference data are available. Therefore, metabarcoding can be seen as the future standard method for all biological research areas where species occurrence and distribution is in question, e.g., ecological research or monitoring projects (Porter and Hajibabaei 2018). A common outcome of metabarcoding research are Amplicon Sequence Variant tables (ASV, Callahan et al. 2017). These tables combine the extracted sequences of all sampling plots with the occurrences of each sequence within a single plot. To identify the species, each sequence is searched in one or more reference databases that hold sequences and their known taxon identifications (e.g., Barcode Of Life Data system (BOLD) or the German Barcode of Life library (GBOL)). The sequence searches utilise tools like BLAST, BOLD identification engine, or vsearch. Found taxa and their taxonomy are added to the ASV tables as taxon assignments. The number and precision of taxon assignments will increase with the growth of available sequences and quality of identifications in reference databases over time (Weigand et al. 2019). The introduction of new marker sequences and improvements in search tools will further enhance the taxon assignments. Thus, the taxon assignments in ASV tables are subject to change. Projects with the aim of building up species inventories on a large scale (GBOL) or monitoring programs, like the Automated Multisensor Stations for Monitoring of BioDiversity (Wägele et al. 2022), quickly produce data sets with thousands of sequences at numerous locations. Currently, most ASV tables are stored as supplements to publications or in private repositories. This makes analysis across multiple research projects difficult and error prone as sequences and their taxon assignments are often not accessible. Efforts, like the European Bioinformatics Institute metagenomics with Mgnify serve the needs for uploading and annotating environmental DNA samples (Mitchell et al. 2017), but a registry for ASV tables with complete data life cycles is lacking. To fill this gap, we develop an ASV Table Registry as part of the German Barcode of Life III - Dark Taxa project. This allows users to: register ASV tables and sequences upload and manage ASV tables with versioning publish ASV tables with DOIs search by sequences, taxa, and occurrence data retrieve API-based data assign taxonomic names with various tools and reference databases keep track of the applied search methods and parameters register ASV tables and sequences upload and manage ASV tables with versioning publish ASV tables with DOIs search by sequences, taxa, and occurrence data retrieve API-based data assign taxonomic names with various tools and reference databases keep track of the applied search methods and parameters The data life cycle of the uploaded ASV tables consists of several draft versions (each re-annotation with the identification pipeline creates a new draft version) and eventually a published version with a DOI. New draft versions can be created from the published version, then re-annotated and published again. The tracking of former taxon assignments allows researchers to re-evaluate data of former studies, compare them, and add new results. The ASV Table Registry developed here aims to make ASV tables FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and to foster the shared use in research projects. Future development focuses on the incorporation of the MIxS standard (Yilmaz et al. 2011) and on submission of the published data to International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) using established dataflows from the German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio) and NFDI4biodiversity. The ASV data portal is accessible at: https://bolgermany.de/metabarcoding; the source code at: https://gitlab.leibniz-lib.de/GBOL/asv-table-registry.

The SHOWCASE DMP is structured into five sections, which aim to establish the scope and terms of use of research data within the project in accordance with the Horizon 2020 requirements of data management.The first section provides an introduction to the plan, which outlines the main data management practices that SHOWCASE would implement throughout the five-year project duration, as well as aspects of sustainable management of results and data after the conclusion of the project period.The second section of the document provides an overview of the commitments that SHOWCASE has made in relation to handling data in a controlled and transparent way, and ensuring an open access to research data and results in line with the EU’s Open Research Data Pilot and FAIR data management.The third section describes the details of data management within the project, focusing on different aspects of the process - from data collection, through data processing, to storage and access provision. The section features information on personal data protection in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as well as a break-down of the research data usage into project work packages. Recommendations for relevant data management practices are described in the section.The fourth section includes an overview of the specific data management details for the project work packages. The specific data formats and data management requirements of work packages are described.The fifth section of the DMP features concluding remarks on the data management strategy adopted by the project, and it outlines future updates and additions to the plan, which are going to be presented at a later stage of the project’s development.

Regulatory and incentive instruments for biodiversity management on farms (Short summary for practitioners)

Nature conservation policies require up-to-date and accurate biodiversity monitoring. Innovative synoptic information products such as Remote Sensing-enabled Essential Biodiversity Variables (RS-enabled EBVs) could complement field observations in biodiversity monitoring. It is not clear however, how these scientific remote sensing products can be utilized for policy reporting. Agreement on the monitored geographic extent (area size and scale), as well as biodiversity attributes (composition, structure, and function), may provide a common'point of departure' for policymakers and the scientific community to develop and further improve monitoring. In this study, biodiversity indicators of 10 nature conservation policies and 50 RS-enabled EBVs were compared using non-parametric tests (chi-square and Mann-Whitney U). Our main finding is that policy indicators and RS-enabled EBVs are very similar in the spatial extent they address (mapping scale). However, most policy indicators are related to ecosystem structure while most of the RS-enabled EBVs are related to ecosystem function and ecosystem structure. RS-enabled EBVs have added value in monitoring of biodiversity, especially when looking at ecosystem functioning. Information on ecosystem functioning and structure provides evidence needed as input for policy development and management of biodiversity. However, to make this happen, a stronger focus on ecosystem functioning and structure with appropriate variables is needed, in policy requirements and targets.

O protocolo de armadilhamento fotográfico TEAM para o monitoramento de vertebrados terrestres de médio e grande porte permite estimativas de parâmetros da biodiversidade que informam os gestores de áreas protegidas sobre os impactos de ameaças ou de ações de manejo da biodiversidade. Neste trabalho, apresentamos resultados de 4 anos do monitoramento TEAM na Reserva Biológica do Gurupi com objetivo de avaliar sua efetividade na conservação de vertebrados terrestres de médio e grande porte da Amazônia maranhense. Foram avaliadas tendências temporais na riqueza e composição da comunidade, nas taxas de ocupação das espécies monitoradas e no Wildlife Picture Index, índice sensível às mudanças na biodiversidade. Foram registradas 36 espécies de vertebrados de médio e grande porte, representando 72% das aves e 96% dos mamíferos com ocorrência na Amazônia maranhense. As populações monitoradas, inclusive de espécies endêmicas e ameaçadas de extinção, permaneceram estáveis ao longo de 4 anos de monitoramento. A taxa de ocupação da maioria das espécies aumentou no período de monitoramento, refletindo no aumento do Wildlife Picture Index. Possivelmente essas tendências têm relação com o grande incêndio florestal que assolou a Reserva Biológica do Gurupi em 2015, indicando a recuperação da biota e a resiliência frente a eventos extremos. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que a Reserva Biológica do Gurupi tem sido efetiva e tem papel de destaque na conservação de vertebrados terrestres de médio e grande porte da Amazônia maranhense. El protocolo de captura fotográfica TEAM para monitorear vertebrados terrestres medianos y grandes, permite estimaciones de parámetros de biodiversidad que informan a los administradores de áreas protegidas sobre los impactos de las amenazas o acciones de gestión de la biodiversidad. En este trabajo, presentamos los resultados de 4 años de monitoreo TEAM en Reserva Biológica del Gurupi con el objetivo de evaluar su efectividad en la conservación de vertebrados terrestres medianos y grandes en la región amazónica el estado brasileño del Maranhão. Fueram evaluadas las tendencias temporales en la riqueza y composición de la comunidad, en las tasas de ocupación de las especies monitoreadas y en el Wildlife Picture Index, un índice sensible a los cambios en la biodiversidad. Fueram registradas 36 especies que representan 72% de las aves y 96% de los mamíferos presentes en la región amazónica del Maranhão. Las poblaciones monitoreadas, incluidas las especies endémicas y en peligro de extinción, se mantuvieron estables durante 4 años de monitoreo. La tasa de ocupación de la mayoría de las especies tuvo un incremento, tan bien el Wildlife Picture Index. Posiblemente estas tendencias estén relacionadas con el gran incendio forestal que afectó la Reserva Biológica del Gurupi en 2015, indicando la recuperación de la biota y la resiliencia de la unidad de conservación frente a eventos extremos. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que la Reserva Biológica del Gurupi ha sido eficaz y tiene un papel destacado en la conservación de vertebrados terrestres medianos y grandes en la región amazónica del Maranhão. The TEAM camera trap protocol to monitor medim- to large-sized terrestrial vertebrates, allow estimates of biodiversity parameters that inform protected area managers about threats to biodiversity or the impact of management actions. In this study, we present results of four years of camera trap monitoring at Gurupi Biological Reserve to evaluate its effectiveness in conserving medium- to large-sized terrestrial vertebrates from the Amazon region of Maranhão Brazilian State. We evaluate trends in species richness, community composition, species occupancy rates, and Wildlife Picture Index to assess biodiversity status and trends. We recorded 36 species of medium- to large-sized vertebrates, representing 72% of the birds and 96% of the mammals of Amazon region of Maranhão. The monitored populations, including endemic and endangered species, remained stable over 4 years monitoring. Occupancy rates for most species increased as well as the Wildlife Picture Index. Possibly these trends are related to wildlife recovery after a wildfire that hit Gurupi Biological Reserve in 2015, and indicates the resilience of the protected area after a severe impact. The results show the Gurupi Biological Reserve has been effective in its goal of conserving medium-to large-sized terrestrial vertebrates.

Recently developed non-invasive environmental DNA-based (eDNA) techniques have enlightened modern conservation biology, propelling the monitoring/management of natural populations to a more effective and efficient approach, compared to traditional surveys. However, due to rapid-expansion of eDNA, confusion in terminology and collection/analytical pipelines can potentially jeopardize research progression, methodological standardization, and practitioner adoption in several ways. Present investigation reflects the developmental progress of eDNA (sensu stricto) including highlighting the successful case studies in conservation management. The eDNA technique is successfully relevant in several areas of conservation research (invasive/conserve species detection) with a high accuracy and authentication, which gradually upgrading modern conservation approaches. The eDNA technique related bioinformatics (e.g., taxon-specific-primers MiFish, MiBird, etc.), sample-dependent methodology, and advancement of sequencing technology (e.g., oxford-nanopore-sequencing) are helping in research progress. The investigation shows that the eDNA technique is applicable largely in (i) early detection of invasive species, (ii) species detection for conservation, (iii) community level biodiversity monitoring, (iv) ecosystem health monitoring, (v) study on trophic interactions, etc. Thus, the eDNA technique with a high accuracy and authentication can be applicable alone or coupled with traditional surveys in conservation biology. However, a comprehensive eDNA-based monitoring program (ecosystem modeling and function) is essential on a global scale for future management decisions.

Simple Summary Worldwide biodiversity loss points to a necessity of upgrading to a fast and effective monitoring method that can provide quick conservation action. Newly developed environmental DNA (eDNA) based method found to be more cost-effective, non-invasive, quick, and accurate than traditional monitoring (spot identification, camera trapping). Although the eDNA based methods are proliferating rapidly, as a newly developed branch, it needs more standardization and practitioner adaptation. The present study aims to evaluate the eDNA based methods, and their potential achievements in biodiversity monitoring, and conservation for quick practitioners’ adaption. The investigation shows that the eDNA technique is applicable largely in (i) early detection of invasive species, (ii) species detection for conservation, (iii) community-level biodiversity monitoring, (iv) ecosystem health monitoring, (v) study on trophic interactions, etc. Thus, the eDNA technique shows a great promise with its high accuracy and authenticity, and will be applicable alone or alongside other methods in the near future. Abstract Recently developed non-invasive environmental DNA-based (eDNA) techniques have enlightened modern conservation biology, propelling the monitoring/management of natural populations to a more effective and efficient approach, compared to traditional surveys. However, due to rapid-expansion of eDNA, confusion in terminology and collection/analytical pipelines can potentially jeopardize research progression, methodological standardization, and practitioner adoption in several ways. Present investigation reflects the developmental progress of eDNA (sensu stricto) including highlighting the successful case studies in conservation management. The eDNA technique is successfully relevant in several areas of conservation research (invasive/conserve species detection) with a high accuracy and authentication, which gradually upgrading modern conservation approaches. The eDNA technique related bioinformatics (e.g., taxon-specific-primers MiFish, MiBird, etc.), sample-dependent methodology, and advancement of sequencing technology (e.g., oxford-nanopore-sequencing) are helping in research progress. The investigation shows that the eDNA technique is applicable largely in (i) early detection of invasive species, (ii) species detection for conservation, (iii) community level biodiversity monitoring, (iv) ecosystem health monitoring, (v) study on trophic interactions, etc. Thus, the eDNA technique with a high accuracy and authentication can be applicable alone or coupled with traditional surveys in conservation biology. However, a comprehensive eDNA-based monitoring program (ecosystem modeling and function) is essential on a global scale for future management decisions.

Community science (also often referred to as citizen science) provides a unique opportunity to address questions beyond the scope of other research methods whilst simultaneously engaging communities in the scientific process. This leads to broad educational benefits, empowers people, and can increase public awareness of societally relevant issues such as the biodiversity crisis. As such, community science has become a favourable framework for researching alien species where data on the presence, absence, abundance, phenology, and impact of species is important in informing management decisions. However, uncertainties arising at different stages can limit the interpretation of data and lead to projects failing to achieve their intended outcomes. Focusing on alien species centered community science projects, we identified key research questions and the relevant uncertainties that arise during the process of developing the study design, for example, when collecting the data and during the statistical analyses. Additionally, we assessed uncertainties from a linguistic perspective, and how the communication stages among project coordinators, participants and other stakeholders can alter the way in which information may be interpreted. We discuss existing methods for reducing uncertainty and suggest further solutions to improve data reliability. Further, we make suggestions to reduce the uncertainties that emerge at each project step and provide guidance and recommendations that can be readily applied in practice. Reducing uncertainties is essential and necessary to strengthen the scientific and community outcomes of community science, which is of particular importance to ensure the success of projects aimed at detecting novel alien species and monitoring their dynamics across space and time.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10530-022-02858-8.

Standardized methods for effectively and rapidly monitoring changes in the biodiversity of marine ecosystems are critical to assess status and trends in ways that are comparable between locations and over time. In intertidal and subtidal habitats, estimates of fractional cover and abundance of organisms are typically obtained with traditional quadrat-based methods, and collection of photoquadrat imagery is a standard practice. However, visual analysis of quadrats, either in the field or from photographs, can be very time-consuming. Cutting-edge machine learning tools are now being used to annotate species records from photoquadrat imagery automatically, significantly reducing processing time of image collections. However, it is not always clear whether information is lost, and if so to what degree, using automated approaches. In this study, we compared results from visual quadrats versus automated photoquadrat assessments of macroalgae and sessile organisms on rocky shores across the American continent, from Patagonia (Argentina), Galapagos Islands (Ecuador), Gorgona Island (Colombian Pacific), and the northeast coast of the United States (Gulf of Maine) using the automated software CoralNet. Photoquadrat imagery was collected at the same time as visual surveys following a protocol implemented across the Americas by the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) Pole to Pole of the Americas program. Our results show that photoquadrat machine learning annotations can estimate percent cover levels of intertidal benthic cover categories and functional groups (algae, bare substrate, and invertebrate cover) nearly identical to those from visual quadrat analysis. We found no statistical differences of cover estimations of dominant groups in photoquadrat images annotated by humans and those processed in CoralNet (binomial generalized linear mixed model or GLMM). Differences between these analyses were not significant, resulting in a Bray-Curtis average distance of 0.13 (sd 0.11) for the full label set, and 0.12 (sd 0.14) for functional groups. This is the first time that CoralNet automated annotation software has been used to monitor “Invertebrate Abundance and Distribution” and “Macroalgal Canopy Cover and Composition” Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) in intertidal habitats. We recommend its use for rapid, continuous surveys over expanded geographical scales and monitoring of intertidal areas globally.

Simple Summary This work aims to validate a citizen science protocol for monitoring the flight activity of stingless bees. The count of flight activity (entrance, exit, and entrance carrying pollen) filmed in 30 s videos was compared among three different groups: “original” citizen scientists (group that filmed and performed the count in their own videos), “replicator” citizen scientists (group of citizen scientists who performed flight activity counts on videos shot by other citizen scientists), and experts (researchers who work with bees and who performed the counts on videos shot by citizen scientists). The analysis was divided into two levels: perception (detection of activity in videos) and counting. The results of this analysis revealed that citizen scientists and experts have similar perception and count of bee entrance and exit activity, as no statistical differences were found in these two items. However, replicator citizen scientists noticed more bees carrying pollen than original citizen scientists and experts. Despite this, considering only the videos in which the groups agreed on the presence of pollen, the count was similar for both. These results enabled the validation of the protocol and indicated high quality of data produced by individuals who participate in scientific practices following a citizen science approach. Abstract Although the quality of citizen science (CS) data is often a concern, evidence for high-quality CS data increases in the scientific literature. This study aimed to assess the data reliability of a structured CS protocol for monitoring stingless bees’ flight activity. We tested (1) data accuracy for replication among volunteers and for expert validation and (2) precision, comparing dispersion between citizen scientists and expert data. Two distinct activity dimensions were considered: (a) perception of flight activity and (b) flight activity counts (entrances, exits, and pollen load). No significant differences were found among groups regarding entrances and exits. However, replicator citizen scientists presented a higher chance of perceiving pollen than original data collectors and experts, likely a false positive. For those videos in which there was an agreement about pollen presence, the effective pollen counts were similar (with higher dispersion for citizen scientists), indicating the reliability of CS-collected data. The quality of the videos, a potential source of variance, did not influence the results. Increasing practical training could be an alternative to improve pollen data quality. Our study shows that CS provides reliable data for monitoring bee activity and highlights the relevance of a multi-dimensional approach for assessing CS data quality.