FrogWatchUSA: Citizen Science as the Future of Environmental Research

Citizen Science is an form of research collaboration between scientists and volunteers, allowing for a wider array of scientific data collection and a greater distribution of information to the scientific and general community. This form of networking is becoming popular as a means for regular people to get involved and contribute to active research goals, typically addressing studies that require a huge amount of data collection over a long period of time. Many institutions have already implemented several citizen science programs, most with clear degrees of success.

Citizen science is an appealing form of research for several reasons:   

1. By getting volunteers involved, the number of researchers participating in a study is drastically increased, allowing for a more in-depth study. Volunteers can help by gathering data over a much wider range of both time and space, providing a more accurate pool of data. Programs like FrogWatch USA use volunteers to collect data across the entire country nearly year-round, obtaining far more data than a small team of scientists ever could.   

2. Community engagement, collaboration and education bring the research to light. Conservation initiatives get volunteers involved in collecting data, both enlightening the community on conservation goals while also providing them with the ability to contribute to those goals. Citizens take an interest in their community and through the scientific process are able to make real-world changes.  

 3. Information sharing is more easily achieved simply by allowing the community to take part in the research. Through research collaboration, citizen science programs collect data that is not only useful to the study they are a part of, but to other research initiatives focused in the same area or field of study. Those volunteers active in the program also effectively spread word about the study, raising public awareness while also attracting prospective new volunteers.    

The FrogWatch USA program was started by the US Geological Survey in 1998 to observe frog and toad activity throughout the United States. A citizen science program from the beginning, FrogWatch USA grew quickly with the help of environmentally concerned volunteers; by 2005, 1,395 volunteers were actively monitoring more than 1,940 sites around the nation. FrogWatch USA took off when it was taken over by the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums), and today the program has over 100 chapters established in 39 states and the District of Colombia with research sites in 49 states. More than 3,500 volunteers have been trained nationwide since 2010, making FrogWatch USA one of the most ambitious and successful citizen science studies to date.  

FrogWatch USA volunteers are trained to identify local frog and toad species based solely on their breeding calls (every species has a unique call, no matter how similar they may sound). During the breeding season (roughly February-September), FrogWatch volunteers monitor local wetlands at night, recording the species that can be heard and the intensity of the calling. The intensity provides a rough estimate to the size of the population in that location. Their data is turned over to chapter coordinators who review their findings before uploading them to FieldScope, the public database that holds all FrogWatch data collected nationwide.

Frogs and toads are the proverbial canary in the coal mine; when something happens in the environment, they will be the first to exhibit changes. Changes in their habitat such as pollutants can have profound effects on local populations, causing mass die-offs, infertility and disastrous mutations. The data that FrogWatch USA has collected for the past 18 years can be used to determine where frog and toads populations are in decline or on an upwards trend, thanks to the thousands of reports turned in by volunteers. By monitoring location, time, weather conditions, precipitation, water quality, human activity, and other biotic and abiotic factors, FrogWatch USA is capable of determining why local amphibian populations are in flux.

   

The information collected by AZA does not just sit in a database. It is used for strategic land management and development. Monitoring several threatened and critically endangered species, FrogWatch is able to inform cities and counties where at-risk species are and how to protect them. Roads that pass through crucial habitats often have to be rerouted to protect local endangered amphibians. The database itself is open to the public, and the data collected can be used by other scientists who require a large information pool but do not have the volunteers necessary to obtain it. Even citizens with no scientific background can use the tools on FieldScope to look at frog and toad species in their own backyard.

Citizen science is the future of scientific research. The ability to get the public involved in data collection provides a wealth of information that would be otherwise unobtainable. It encourages the community to pay attention to important research and findings that have more impact on their lives than they might think. And it provides a unique educational experience into the scientific method that one might not be able to acquire otherwise. Without the volunteers providing the vast amount of data, FrogWatch USA would likely have ended shortly after it began.

To learn more about FrogWatch USA, click here.

To check out FieldScope, click here.