Understanding large-scale ecological processes often requires participation by volunteers to collect information over large spatial and temporal scales. Such Citizen Science projects have a long history in some developed countries. Most tropical countries, however, lag behind in the use of this approach, and hence in information on changes in populations, ranges and other measures of ecological interest. Here, I describe new efforts towards monitoring large-scale phenological changes in India through Citizen Science efforts on birds and plants.
Results/Conclusions
MigrantWatch, a programme aimed at monitoring the timing of bird migration, has grown rapidly in participation and data entry since its launch in August 2008. Data now exist for two years of Fall migration for a subset of species, providing the first documentation of arrival dates across India.
The programme owes its success partly to an increase in interest in birds and other wildlife in the expanding urban middle class, and partly to the penetration of the internet. Obstacles to participation include a combination of common issues and country-specific problems. These obstacles include a perceived amateur/professional divide, as well as within-country regional divisions. A second programme is being launched to track flowering, fruiting and leafing phenology of widespread trees; we hope that this will attract large numbers of urban participants, but a particular challenge will be to reach potential participants in non-urban areas, whose primary language is not English, and who may not have access to the internet.
