Integrating citizen science and professional data to model habitat suitability for the American pika

Background/Question/Methods

Concerns about American pika (Ochotona princeps) population declines have grown in recent years, especially under climate change scenarios for alpine environments. However, the ability to detect changes in American pika abundance is hindered by a lack of data over space and time. Citizen science data may be able to augment the spatial and temporal extent of the range of conditions sampled by professional datasaets related to American pika monitoring. Citizen science programs involve trained volunteers collecting scientific data and information as a means to meet research and management objectives. Using professional (n=132) and citizen science (n=203) pika observations in Colorado, we compared the range of environmental conditions sampled in the citizen dataset to that of the professional dataset .We then  compared maximum entropy (MaxEnt) models of predicted habitat suitability created using a subset of professional and citizen data to that predicted using only professional data. MaxEnt models were created using 30 meter resolution environmental predictor layers of vegetation type, slope, elevation, and aspect.

Results/Conclusions

We found that citizen data covered a wider range of environmental variability than professional-only observations across Colorado. Citizen collected data covered a broader range for slope (2.2-78.2 degrees) and elevation (2552-4273 m) when compared to the same predictors associated with professional-only data (2.3 -47.7 degrees and 2486-3368 m, respectively). We present model comparisons using the Area Under the Curve (AUC) statistic. Preliminary results suggest that habitat suitability models, when augmented with citizen observations accounting for different sample sizes, improve model performance. We discuss the consequences of incorporating broader environmental conditions sampled with the help of citizen volunteers for improving model results and posit that citizen observations may augment professional datasets and improve scientific understanding of the potential habitat available for the American pika throughout Colorado.