Volunteer Accuracy in a Benthic Macroinvertebrate Participatory Science Project - Data and Code

The data and R code provided here are the underpinnings of a manuscript in the journal, Citizen Science: Theory and Practice (Volunteer Accuracy in a Benthic Macroinvertebrate Participatory Science Project). Volunteer-derived aquatic macroinvertebrate identifications and resulting water quality metrics are compared to results from a professional entomologist. The assessment included a total of 357 benthic macroinvertebrate quality control (QC) samples collected by volunteers using leaf packs, kick nets, and visual assessments between 2011 and 2016 for the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) in North Carolina, USA. Of the 357 total samples, 284 were of sufficient quality to be used in the analysis. Data incudes counts of organisms conducted by volunteers on each sample and counts conducted by an entomologist. Macroinvertebrate index values are calculated based on volunteer and entomologist counts and are compared using linear regression and Bray-Curtis dissimilarity methods.