It’s not rocket science, it’s citizen science: Scaling up use-inspired ecological research

Scientists figure out how the world works.  Citizens want to know why their “backyards” are changing and what they can do about it.  Use-inspired ecological research demands documenting impacts and adaptive solutions.  Tracking trends in biodiversity - much less doing something about degradation and loss - requires fine grain, broad extent, decadal-scale datasets; just the type that scientists can’t easily produce.  But millions of people participate in biodiversity citizen science.  Hundreds of projects collect critical information on a wide range of taxa, often directly linked to anthropogenic impacts: climate change, species invasions, bycatch – the list is endless.  And, citizens vote...