Smartphone Icon User Interface design for non-literate trackers and its implications for an inclusive citizen science

Abstract In 1996 we developed an Icon User Interface design for handheld computers that enabled non-literate trackers to enter complex data. When employed in large numbers over extended periods of time, trackers can gather large quantities of complex, rich biodiversity data that cannot be gathered in any other way. One significant result in the Congo was that data collected by trackers made it possible to alert health authorities to outbreaks of Ebola in wild animal populations, weeks before they posed a risk to humans. Trackers can also play a critical role in preventing the decimation of large mammal fauna due to poaching. Collectively, the seven case studies reviewed in this paper demonstrate the richness and complexity of scientific data contributed by community-based citizen science. Furthermore, trackers can also make novel contributions to science, demonstrated by scientific papers co-authored by trackers. This may have far-reaching implications for the development of an inclusive citizen science. Community-based tracking can significantly contribute to large-scale, long-term monitoring of biodiversity on a worldwide basis. However, community-based citizen science in developing countries will require international support to be sustainable.

[1]  Jennifer Koenig,et al.  CyberTracker: An integral management tool used by rangers in the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, central Arnhem Land, Australia , 2011 .

[2]  R. Crewe,et al.  Human Factors Facilitating the Spread of a Parasitic Honey Bee in South Africa , 2006, Journal of economic entomology.

[3]  Tatsuya Amano,et al.  An agenda for the future of biological recording for ecological monitoring and citizen science , 2015 .

[4]  E. Ens.  Monitoring outcomes of environmental service provision in low socio-economic indigenous Australia using innovative CyberTracker Technology , 2012 .

[5]  R. Bonney,et al.  Citizen Science: A Developing Tool for Expanding Science Knowledge and Scientific Literacy , 2009 .

[6]  D. Rieke-Zapp,et al.  Experience based reading of Pleistocene human footprints in Pech-Merle , 2017 .

[7]  J. Berger,et al.  The Uncertainty of Data and Dehorning Black Rhinos , 1994 .

[8]  J. Draper.  THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE , 1928 .

[9]  Kevin Crowston,et al.  The future of citizen science: emerging technologies and shifting paradigms , 2012, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

[10]  Louis Liebenberg,et al.  The Value, Limitations, and Challenges of Employing Local Experts in Conservation Research , 2011, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[11]  C. Marchese.  Biodiversity hotspots: A shortcut for a more complicated concept , 2015 .

[12]  Tilman Lenssen-Erz,et al.  Tracking in Caves: Experience based reading of Pleistocene human footprints in French caves , 2015 .

[13]  Louis Liebenberg,et al.  Rhino tracking with the CyberTracker field computer , 1999 .

[14]  Richard E. Lewis,et al.  A Multicountry Assessment of Tropical Resource Monitoring by Local Communities , 2014 .

[15]  Peter Kareiva,et al.  Conserving Biodiversity Coldspots , 2003, American Scientist.

[16]  J. L. Gittleman,et al.  The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection , 2014, Science.

[17]  R. Pelletier,et al.  Animal Density and Track Counts: Understanding the Nature of Observations Based on Animal Movements , 2014, PloS one.

[18]  Judith Kruger,et al.  Science support within the South African National Parks adaptive management framework , 1970 .

[19]  Claire Waterton,et al.  Caught between the Cartographic and the Ethnographic Imagination: The Whereabouts of Amateurs, Professionals, and Nature in Knowing Biodiversity , 2005 .

[20]  K. Popper,et al.  Conjectures and Refutations , 1963 .

[21]  Imre Lakatos,et al.  The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes , 1978 .

[22]  Candie C. Wilderman,et al.  Public Participation in Scientific Research: a Framework for Deliberate Design , 2012 .

[23]  R. Freckleton,et al.  Declines in the numbers of amateur and professional taxonomists: implications for conservation , 2002 .

[24]  Marko Becker,et al.  The Architecture Of The Mind , 2016 .

[25]  J. Berger,et al.  “Costs” and Short‐Term Survivorship of Hornless Black Rhinos , 1993 .

[26]  Carol Palmer,et al.  Monitoring indicates rapid and severe decline of native small mammals in Kakadu National Park, northern Australia , 2010 .

[27]  Karin Pirhofer-Walzl,et al.  Linking Public Participation in Scientific Research to the Indicators and Needs of International Environmental Agreements , 2014 .

[28]  Ari Van Assche,et al.  The Role of Trade Costs in Global Production Networks: Evidence from China's Processing Trade Regime , 2010 .

[29]  Brian J. Taylor.  Amateurs, professionals and the knowledge of archaeology , 1995 .

[30]  P. Stander,et al.  The ecology of asociality in Namibian leopards , 2009 .

[31]  J. Altman,et al.  Caring for country and sustainable Indigenous development: Opportunities, constraints and innovation , 2003 .

[32]  D. Richardson,et al.  Patterns of alien plant distribution at multiple spatial scales in a large national park: implications for ecology, management and monitoring , 2009 .

[33]  Pierre Du Plessis.  Tracking knowledge : science, tracking and technology , 2010 .

[34]  M. Owens,et al.  Cry of the Kalahari , 1984 .

[35]  Comparing participatory ecological research in two contexts: An immigrant community and a native american community on olympic peninsula, washington , 2012 .

[36]  Finn Danielsen,et al.  Counting what counts: using local knowledge to improve Arctic resource management , 2014 .

[37]  H. Nix,et al.  The nature of Northern Australia : natural values, ecological processes and future prospects , 2007 .

[38]  J. Silvertown.  A new dawn for citizen science. , 2009, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[39]  Rick Bonney,et al.  The current state of citizen science as a tool for ecological research and public engagement , 2012 .

[40]  K. May.  Indigenous cultural and natural resource management and the emerging role of the Working on Country program , 2010 .

[41]  Louis Liebenberg.  The Art of Tracking , 1990 .

[42]  A. Griffiths,et al.  Aerial survey of vertebrates in the Mann River district, central Arnhem Land , 2003, Northern Territory Naturalist.

[43]  W. Karesh,et al.  Wild Animal Mortality Monitoring and Human Ebola Outbreaks, Gabon and Republic of Congo, 2001–2003 , 2005, Emerging infectious diseases.

[44]  Wilfried Thuiller,et al.  Rare Species Support Vulnerable Functions in High-Diversity Ecosystems , 2013, PLoS biology.

[45]  P. Stander,et al.  Tracking and the interpretation of spoor: a scientifically sound method in ecology , 2009 .

[46]  L. Liebenberg.  The relevance of persistence hunting to human evolution. , 2008, Journal of human evolution.

[47]  Jon Fjeldså,et al.  Local Participation in Natural Resource Monitoring: a Characterization of Approaches , 2009, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[48]  Tatsuya Amano,et al.  Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security , 2013, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[49]  D. Richardson,et al.  Protected-Area Boundaries as Filters of Plant Invasions , 2010, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[50]  J. Altman,et al.  The environmental significance of the Indigenous estate: Natural resource management as economic development in remote Australia , 2018 .

[51]  Michael J. O. Pocock,et al.  The Biological Records Centre: a pioneer of citizen science , 2015 .

[52]  D. Roy,et al.  Fifty years of the Biological Records Centre , 2015 .

[53]  Jeremy Russell-Smith,et al.  Contemporary fire regimes of northern Australia, 1997–2001: change since Aboriginal occupancy, challenges for sustainable management , 2003 .

[54]  R. Bonney,et al.  Next Steps for Citizen Science , 2014, Science.

[55]  W. Vosloo,et al.  A qualitative risk assessment of factors contributing to foot and mouth disease cattle outbreaks along the western boundary of the Kruger National Park , 2009 .

[56]  LouisLiebenberg,et al.  Persistence Hunting by Modern Hunter- Gatherers , 2006 .

[57]  Peter Carruthers,et al.  The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought , 2006 .

[58]  T. Kuhn,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1964 .

[59]  D. Richardson,et al.  Defining optimal sampling effort for large-scale monitoring of invasive alien plants: a Bayesian method for estimating abundance and distribution. , 2011 .

[60]  R. Corlett,et al.  The Anthropocene concept in ecology and conservation. , 2015, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[61]  N. Preece,et al.  Uneven distribution of weeds along extensive transects in Australia's Northern Territory points to management solutions , 2010 .

[62]  I. Lakatos.  Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes , 1976 .

[63]  D. Keeping,et al.  Rapid assessment of wildlife abundance: estimating animal density with track counts using body mass–day range scaling rules , 2014 .

[64]  W. Vosloo,et al.  A qualitative risk assessment of factors contributing to foot and mouth disease outbreaks in cattle along the western boundary of the Kruger National Park. , 2009, Revue scientifique et technique.

[65]  Karin Pirhofer-Walzl,et al.  Environmental monitoring: the scale and speed of implementation varies according to the degree of peoples involvement , 2010 .

[66]  Louis Liebenberg,et al.  Integrating Traditional Knowledge with Computer Science for the Conservation of Biodiversity , 2007 .