Citizen Science Improves the Known and Potential Distribution of a Strong Wetland Invader: Implications for Niche Modeling and Invasion Management

GERVAZONI, PAULA; MINUTI, GIANMARCO; FUENTES RODRÍGUEZ, DANIELA; COETZEE, JULIE; SOSA, ALEJANDRO; SABATER, LARA; FRANCESCHINI, CELESTE

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

SPRINGER

Año: 2023

0364-152X

Invasive alien species are one of the main causes of biodiversity loss and ecosystem alteration. Obtaining up-to-date occurrence records and accurate invasion risk maps has become crucial to develop timely and effective management strategies. Unfortunately, gathering and validating distribution data can be labour-intensive and time-consuming, with different data sources unavoidably leading to biases in the results. In this study, we evaluated the performance of a tailored citizen science project in mapping the distribution of Iris pseudacorus, an invasive aquatic alien plant in Argentina. To do so, we used geographic information systems and ecological niche modeling to analyze the current and potential distribution of this species in Argentina, comparing data obtained from: i) a citizen science tailored project; ii) the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF); and iii) an exhaustive professional data collection (i.e. field samplings across Argentina, literature and collections review). Results suggest that the citizen science project provided a larger and more diversified amount of data compared to the other sources. All data-sources showed good performance in the ecological niche models, however, data from the citizen science project predicted a greater suitable area, including regions not yet reported. This allowed us to better identify critical and vulnerable areas, where management and prevention strategies are necessary. Professional data provided more reports in non-urban areas, whereas citizen science based data sources (i.e. GBIF and the citizen science project conducted in this study) reported more sites in urban areas, which indicates that different data-sources are complementary and there is a big potential in combining methods. We encourage the use of tailored citizen science campaigns to gather a more diverse amount of data, generating better knowledge about aquatic invasive species and helping decision-making in ecosystem management.