Assessing the usefulness of Citizen Science Data for habitat suitability modelling: opportunistic reporting versus sampling based on a systematic protocol

Aim: To evaluate the potential of models based on opportunistic reporting (OR) compared to models based on data from a systematic protocol (SP) for modelling species distributions. We compared model performance for eight forest bird species with contrasting spatial distributions, habitat requirements, and rarity. Differences in the reporting of species were also assessed. Finally, we tested potential improvement of models when inferring high quality absences from OR based on questionnaires sent to observers.

Location: Both datasets cover the same large area (Sweden) and time period (2000 -2013).

Methods: Species distributions were modelled using logistic regression. Predictive performance of OR models to predict SP data were assessed based on AUC. We quantified the congruence in spatial predictions using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. We related these results to species characteristics and reporting behaviour of observers. We also assessed the gain in predictive performa...