Citizen Science Participants Show Increased Involvement in Conservation

Nature-based citizen science projects have the potential to educate their volunteers about conservation issues and encourage them to engage in conservation actions. We surveyed participants from butterfly citizen science... [ view full abstract ]

Nature-based citizen science projects have the potential to educate their volunteers about conservation issues and encourage them to engage in conservation actions. We surveyed participants from butterfly citizen science projects from across the United States to determine the extent to which volunteers are receiving information on butterfly conservation threats and action strategies from their citizen science projects. We also investigated the extent to which projects are actively encouraging their volunteers to engage in conservation through the use of incentives, direct appeals, and projects’ social structure. Finally, we asked respondents how their engagement in 12 different conservation actions, ranging from planting host and nectar plants to contacting the media about butterfly conservation, has changed since they became involved with citizen science. 79% of our respondents reported that they have received information on butterfly conservation from their citizen science project, and 55% felt that their project actively encouraged them to engage in conservation. 95% of the respondents reported that they had increased their involvement in butterfly conservation since they became involved with citizen science. Notably, volunteers who received information on conservation and who were encouraged to engage in conservation by their citizen science project were more likely to have increased their engagement in conservation. A sense of connection to other volunteers was also linked to increased conservation action. Our work identifies areas in which citizen science projects are greatly promoting conservation actions among their volunteers, as well as areas of untapped potential.