Citizen science can complement professional invasive plant surveys and improve estimates of suitable habitat

Aim: Citizen science is a cost-effective potential source of invasive species occurrence data. However, data quality issues due to unstructured sampling approaches may discourage the use of these observations by science and conservation professionals. This study explored the utility of low-structure iNaturalist citizen science data in invasive plant monitoring. We first examined the prevalence of invasive taxa in iNaturalist plant observations and sampling biases associated with those data. Using four invasive species as examples, we then compared iNaturalist and professional agency observations and used the two datasets to model suitable habitat for each species.
Location: Hawaiʻi, USA
Methods: To estimate the prevalence of invasive plant data, we compared the number of species and observations recorded in iNaturalist to botanical checklists for Hawaiʻi. Sampling bias was quantified along gradients of site accessibility, protective status, and vegetation disturbance using a bias index...., , , # Data from: Citizen science can complement professional invasive plant surveys and improve estimates of suitable habitat

Diversity and Distributions, 00, 1–16. [https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13749](https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13749)

Access this dataset on Dryad: [https://doi.org/10.5068/D1769Q](https://doi.org/10.5068/D1769Q)

## R Scripts and Data Tables

### Scripts

#### File: bias\_index.R

Description: R script for calculating bias in: 1) all iNaturalist plant observations and 2) iNaturalist and professional observations of the 4 study species, Hedychium gardnerianum, Lantana camara, Leucaena leucocephala, and Psidium cattleianum.

#### File: hsm.R

Description: R script for: 1) producing Hedychium gardnerianum, Lantana camara, Leucaena leucocephala, and Psidium cattleianum habitat suitability models and 2) calculating overlap among model series with Schoener's D.

### Tables \[biasclasses folder]

#### File: area\_disturb\_iv.txt

Description: Comma-delimited file containing the ...