Data from: 10 years of fish species sampling in Rouge River, Michigan

Participatory science has increased the scope of ecological data
collection and monitoring. Despite its growing popularity, Participatory
science are rarely validated. Validation is important to ensure high
quality data can be used in scientific studies, monitoring, and
management. The Rouge River (Michigan, USA), an Environmental Protection
Agency Area of Concern, is considered a highly degraded river, but has
benefited from numerous restoration projects. These projects have improved
abiotic conditions in the river, but improvements to the biotic
communities have not been assessed. Friends of the Rouge, a non-profit,
has collected fish assemblage data throughout the river network for 10
years by seining, a sampling method they selected due to concerns
including cost, safety, and fit to the organization’s volunteer-based
monitoring program. We aimed to evaluate differences between sampling fish
assemblages through seining performed by participatory scientist and the
electrofishing method recommended for standardized assessments performed
by fisheries professionals. We examined data from 48 sites across the
Rouge River watershed where both sampling methods were implemented. We
compared: a) species captured, b) the relationship between species
richness and effort, c) diversity metrics used for standardized
evaluation, and d) assemblage similarity between methods across the
watershed. Our results showed that in the wadeable reaches of this urban
river, electrofishing and seining were comparable. The majority of species
captured within the reaches were shared across sampling methods, although
community similarity was lowest and highest in small branches. Differences
in species captured were mostly driven by rare and benthic species.
Species accumulation curves were not significantly different at the
watershed or subwatershed scales (except when non-wadeable reaches were
included). Total species richness, the richness of species tolerant and
intolerant to environmental degradation, and Procedure 51 scores used by
Michigan agencies to assess the status of fish communities, sometimes
differed among branches, but neither method was more effective overall at
capturing fish diversity. Our work demonstrates how participatory science
methods can be validated by comparison with standard methods. Validating
participatory science data enhances utility for monitoring, assessment,
and management decisions.