Citizen Science as a Central Tool for Studying Urban Fauna in a Biodiversity Hotspot

Urbanization presents one of the world’s greatest threats to biodiversity. Not only is urbanization responsible for habitat modification, but the number of people and goods moving through urbanized areas also increases the... [ view full abstract ]

Urbanization presents one of the world’s greatest threats to biodiversity. Not only is urbanization responsible for habitat modification, but the number of people and goods moving through urbanized areas also increases the chance of nonnative species being introduced. Further complicating the situation is the fact that urbanized areas largely consist of private property (e.g., backyards) that is typically difficult for biologists to access. At the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, we think that citizen science is the best solution to this challenge.

Consider the Greater Los Angeles Area, which is the second largest metropolitan region in the United States and also sits within the California Floristic Province (CFP), one of the Earth’s 35 biodiversity hotspots. This region is home to 18.4 million people, the 6th busiest airport in the world, and the busiest container port in the United States. With so many people, goods, and cargo moving through the region, coupled with southern California’s mild Mediterranean climate, there is an extremely high threat of nonnative species becoming established. We created the Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California (RASCals) citizen science project to understand how species ranges have been impacted by urbanization. This is done by comparing modern citizen science generated records to historical museum records. We also use RASCals data to detect nonnative species and document changes to their ranges. Although open for only 1.5 years, this project has already generated multiple discoveries including several for which citizen scientists and museum researchers co-authored peer-reviewed, scientific publications.