Citizen Science projects on Alien Species in Europe

<strong>Context</strong> This survey relates to COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action CA17122 - Alien CSI - Increasing understanding of alien species through citizen science (see https://alien-csi.eu/). The main aim of this survey was to collect information on Citizen Science projects/initiatives involving alien species in European Member States and some neighbouring countries. The survey was performed using a google forms. <strong>Definitions</strong> We defined Citizen Science projects as project which actively involved citizens in scientific enquiry generating new knowledge or understanding on alien species. Citizens may act as contributors, collaborators, or as project leader and have a meaningful role in the project. 'Alien Species' are defined as any live specimen of a species, subspecies or lower taxon of animals, plants, fungi or micro-organisms introduced outside its natural range; it includes any part, gametes, seeds, eggs or propagules of such species, as well as any hybrids, varieties or breeds that might survive and subsequently reproduce. Alien Species thus includes both species that are invasive and species that are alien but not invasive. An 'Invasive Alien Species' is defined as an alien species whose introduction or spread has been found to threaten or adversely impact upon biodiversity and/or related ecosystem services. <strong>Survey methodology</strong> The survey was made available on Google Forms and disseminated online, collecting responses from June 27, 2019 to April 6, 2020. It was shared with all COST Action CA17122 participants and in each country one person coordinated contacts with existing citizen science projects involving alien and/or invasive species and requested that they complete the survey. Thus, all projects were active in EU member states and neighbouring countries, though some may also be active outside of Europe. To increase reach, the survey was also disseminated through the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) newsletter and mailing list and respondents were asked to share it with colleagues and local networks via snowball sampling. <strong>Questions and attribute values</strong> Survey questions and attribute values were developed using JRC metadata standards for CS projects (Bio Innovation Service 2018) and the project metadata model of PPSR Core, a set of global, transdisciplinary data and metadata standards for Public Participation in Scientific Research (https://core.citizenscience.org/). The survey included 62 questions in nine sections: Contact information of the respondent; General characterization of the project, including a brief summary, geographical scope, time scale, hosting entities, funding, etc.; Information on project scope, including target audience, taxonomic and environmental scope, project aims, type of data collected, etc.; Policy-related information, namely if the project has policy relevance and inclusion of species listed in the EU IAS Regulation; Information on engagement, such as type of involvement of citizens in the design of the project, engagement methods and social media used, skills needed to participate and frequency of contributions; Information on feedback and support provided to participants by the project, e.g., if projects provide materials for species identification, guidelines, training activities, information on how data from the project are used, feedback mechanisms and support; Data quality and data management, namely validation mechanism for records, registration type, methods of recording, whether data are open and accessible to citizen scientists, data form used to store data, data standards and data licence used, whether a public data management plan was drafted for the project, and the vocabulary used with respect to biological invasions (origin, occurrence status, degree of establishment and pathway of introduction); Performance indicators of projects, namely, usage of apps, number of participants and number of records, whether learning is assessed, number and type of publications using data from the project; Notes and remarks. <strong>Files</strong> <strong>raw_data.xlsx</strong>: includes the non-processed survey responses, supplemented with a project_ID. All GDPR sensitive data such as email addresses were omitted. Each row represents one project. <strong>projects_excluded.csv: </strong>includes all projects that were omitted from the analysis and the specific criteria for this exclusion. <strong>processed_data.csv</strong>: includes the cleaned, processed survey responses, used for analysis. The R code used for the analysis is available on this github repository. <strong>survey.pdf: </strong>a pdf extract from the original Google Forms, including all questions and their specifications.**研究背景** 本综述关联欧洲科学与技术合作组织（COST）行动CA17122——Alien CSI（通过公民科学提升对外来物种的认知），相关官网为https://alien-csi.eu/。本次调研的核心目标为收集欧洲成员国及部分周边国家中涉及外来物种的公民科学（Citizen Science）项目/倡议的相关信息。调研采用谷歌表单（Google Forms）开展。 **术语定义** 我们将公民科学项目定义为：主动邀请公民参与科学探究，以生成关于外来物种的新知识或新认知的项目。公民可作为贡献者、合作者或项目负责人，在项目中承担有实质意义的角色。 **外来物种（Alien Species）** 指任何被引入其自然分布范围之外的动物、植物、真菌或微生物的物种、亚种或更低分类单元的活体标本；其涵盖该类物种的任何部分、配子、种子、卵或繁殖体，也包括可能存活并后续繁殖的杂交种、变种或品种。因此外来物种既包括入侵性物种，也包括非入侵性外来物种。 **外来入侵物种（Invasive Alien Species）** 指经证实其引入或扩散已对生物多样性及/或相关生态系统服务构成威胁或产生不利影响的外来物种。 **调研方法** 本次调研通过谷歌表单发布并在线推广，数据收集时段为2019年6月27日至2020年4月6日。调研首先向COST行动CA17122的所有参与者推送，并在每个国家指定一名协调人，负责对接当地现有涉及外来和/或外来入侵物种的公民科学项目，邀请其完成问卷。因此受访项目均活跃于欧盟成员国及周边国家，但部分项目也可能在欧洲以外开展。 为扩大调研覆盖范围，本次调研还通过欧洲公民科学协会（ECSA）的通讯及邮件列表进行推广，并要求受访者通过雪球抽样法将问卷分享给同事及本地网络。 **调研问题与属性取值** 调研问题及属性值的制定参考了欧盟联合研究中心（JRC）针对公民科学项目的元数据标准（Bio Innovation Service 2018），以及公共参与科学研究（Public Participation in Scientific Research, PPSR）Core项目的元数据模型——后者是一套面向公共参与科学研究的全球性跨学科数据与元数据标准，相关官网为https://core.citizenscience.org/。 调研共包含9个板块的62个问题：受访者联系方式；项目基本概况，包括简要概述、地理范围、时间跨度、主办机构、资助情况等；项目范围信息，包括目标受众、分类学与环境范围、项目目标、收集的数据类型等；政策相关信息，即项目是否具有政策相关性，是否纳入欧盟外来入侵物种法规所列物种；参与相关信息，如公民在项目设计中的参与类型、参与方式及使用的社交媒体平台、参与所需技能与贡献频率；项目为参与者提供的反馈与支持，例如项目是否提供物种鉴定材料、指南、培训活动、项目数据使用说明、反馈机制与支持服务；数据质量与数据管理，包括记录验证机制、注册类型、记录方法、数据是否对公民科学家开放、数据存储表单、使用的数据标准与数据许可协议、项目是否制定公开数据管理计划，以及生物入侵相关术语（起源、发生状态、定殖程度与引入途径）；项目绩效指标，例如应用程序使用情况、参与者数量与记录数量、是否评估学习成果、基于项目数据发表的论文数量与类型；备注与说明。 **数据文件说明** - **raw_data.xlsx**：包含未经过处理的调研回复，并补充了项目ID（project_ID）。所有涉及通用数据保护条例（GDPR）的敏感数据（如电子邮箱地址）均已移除。每一行代表一个项目。 - **projects_excluded.csv**：包含所有被排除在分析之外的项目，以及对应的排除标准。 - **processed_data.csv**：包含经过清理与处理的调研回复，用于后续分析。本分析所用的R代码已上传至本GitHub仓库。 - **survey.pdf**：原始谷歌表单的PDF导出文件，包含所有问题及其说明。