Leveraging community science to measure bee body size from museum specimens

Leveraging community science to measure bee body size from museum specimens | Authorea try { document.documentElement.classList.add('js'); } catch (e) { } var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'G-8VDV14Y67G']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); Skip to main content Preprints Collections Wiley Open Research IET Open Research Ecological Society of Japan All Collections About About Authorea FAQs Contact Us Quick Search anywhere Search for preprint articles, keywords, etc. Search Search ADVANCED SEARCH SCROLL Ecology and Evolution This is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary. 19 March 2025 V1 Latest version Share on Leveraging community science to measure bee body size from museum specimens Authors : Madeleine Ostwald 0000-0002-9869-8835 [email protected] , Colleen Smith , Julie Allen , Alec Buetow , A. Manner , Robert Guralnick , Carys Goldsmith , and Katja Seltmann 0000-0001-5354-6048 Authors Info & Affiliations https://doi.org/10.22541/au.174238832.29160542/v1 Published Ecology and Evolution Version of record Peer review timeline 312 views 202 downloads Contents Abstract Supplementary Material Information & Authors Metrics & Citations View Options References Figures Tables Media Share Abstract Community or volunteer participation in research has potential to significantly help mobilize the wealth of biodiversity and functional ecological data housed in natural history collections. Many such projects recruit community scientists to transcribe specimen label data from images; a next step is to task community scientists with conducting straightforward morphological measurements (e.g., body size) from specimen images. We investigated whether community science could be an effective approach to generating significant body size datasets from specimen images generated by museum digitization initiatives. Using the community science platform Notes from Nature, we engaged community scientists in a specimen measurement task to estimate body size (i.e., intertegular distance) from images of bee specimens. Community scientists showed high engagement and completion of this task, with each user measuring 43.6 specimens on average and self-reporting successful measurement of 98.0% of the images. Community scientist measurements were significantly larger than measurements conducted by trained researchers, though the average measurement error was only 2.3%. These results suggest that community science participation could be an effective approach for bee body size measurement, for descriptive studies or for research questions where this degree of expected error is deemed acceptable. For larger-bodied organisms (e.g., vertebrates), where modest measurement errors represent a smaller proportion of body size, community science approaches may be particularly effective. Methods we present here may serve as a blueprint for future projects aimed at engaging the public in biodiversity and collections-based research efforts. Supplementary Material File (nfn ms ecolevol.docx) Download 1.32 MB Information & Authors Information Version history V1 Version 1 19 March 2025 Peer review timeline Published Ecology and Evolution Version of Record 21 Jun 2025 Published Copyright This work is licensed under a Non Exclusive No Reuse License. Collection Ecology and Evolution Keywords evolutionary ecology invertebrate method development terrestrial Authors Affiliations Madeleine Ostwald 0000-0002-9869-8835 [email protected] University of California Santa Barbara View all articles by this author Colleen Smith University of California Santa Barbara View all articles by this author Julie Allen Virginia Tech View all articles by this author Alec Buetow University of California Santa Barbara Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration View all articles by this author A. Manner University of California Santa Barbara Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration View all articles by this author Robert Guralnick University of Florida View all articles by this author Carys Goldsmith University of California Santa Barbara Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration View all articles by this author Katja Seltmann 0000-0001-5354-6048 University of California Santa Barbara Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration View all articles by this author Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 312 views 202 downloads .FvxKWukQNSOunydq8rnd { width: 100px; } Citations Download citation Madeleine Ostwald, Colleen Smith, Julie Allen, et al. Leveraging community science to measure bee body size from museum specimens. Authorea . 19 March 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.174238832.29160542/v1 If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. 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