Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
How healthy are Australia’s ecosystems? To answer that, scientists need data. But Australia is huge – and the number of professional scientists is limited. That’s where citizen science can help.
Every winter, thousands of grey nomads take to the roads and head north. Families return to familiar campgrounds for school holidays. Bushwalkers move through forests and along coastlines. School students catch invertebrates in rivers to learn about waterway health.
Each of these groups – and many more – can collect data vital to conservation efforts. When a citizen scientist uploads a photo of a flower, frog or animal to a central repository such as iNaturalist and eBird, anyone can see it and the location, date and time it was observed.
Citizen science – public participation and collaboration in scientific research – is coming of age. Increasingly, professional scientists are partnering with citizen scientists – and making requests.
Australia faces rapid biodiversity loss, shifting species distributions and widespread ecological change. To respond, scientists and authorities need long-term, standardised monitoring. Professional scientists cannot achieve this alone. No wonder former Chief Scientist Ian Chubb called for grey nomads and others to lend a hand.
No longer a novelty
Old debates over the accuracy and reliability of the data are being drowned out by mounting evidence showing citizen scientists are providing high-quality information.
One of the most valuable things citizen scientists can do is make repeated observations of specific species at specific locations to complement national-scale monitoring. The best data comes from monitoring one location over time using consistent methods and posting data to public databases.
Here are three examples where professional and citizen scientists are working together.
Spotting rare orchids
More than 1,800 species of orchid grow in Australia – and many are found only here.
These remarkable flowering plants make up about 10% of the country’s plant species. Many are threatened by expansion of farming and urban areas.
One challenge for scientists is to understand where species are growing and correctly classify them. Many native orchid species look similar. If a rare species is classified as a common one, it could put the rare species at risk.
This is where initiatives such as Wild Orchid Watch come in.
When citizen scientists spot an orchid, they take photos and record details of when and where it was sighted. Orchid observations are repeated over time and species identifications are verified by ecologists in the iNaturalist platform. Citizen scientists also collect data on orchid numbers and time of flowering.
For regular orchid-spotter Adrian Uren, the process is rewarding. As he has written:
The challenge of finding these little jewels in the bush definitely appeals to me and it’s very rewarding when I find a new species or a spectacular patch of them.
Reiner/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC-ND
Tracking threatened species
TERN Australia is the national ecosystem observatory. Scientists record changes to land ecosystems over time using field monitoring across 16 intensively monitored sites and more than 1,000 1-hectare plots around the country.
Despite these monitoring efforts, there are gaps in the data – both in place and time. Citizen scientists are helping fill these gaps by providing data from places, times and local scales not feasible for scientists to reach.
The Threatened Species Index commenced in 2016 as a way to track the abundance of Australia’s species in trouble. It relies heavily on thousands of citizen scientists, who collect species data consistently.
Without their work, we wouldn’t know threatened species populations have fallen almost 60% since 2000 – or that there are recent signs of improvement for some groups, though more long-term data is needed to confirm recovery. The Australian government now uses data from the index to evaluate conservation initiatives and report biodiversity trends.
Tracking the algal bloom
In March 2025, thousands of sea creatures started washing up dead on South Australian beaches. Underwater footage showed swathes of dead and dying marine life. The culprit turned out to be a mix of tiny, dangerous Karenia algae species. The bloom hasn’t completely disappeared, and has killed millions of marine animals.
As the devastation unfolded, citizen scientists responded by posting data and images of affected species to iNaturalist and responding to requests for help from scientists and organisations such as OzFish. The result was a living repository of data helping track the spread.
scotthedges/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC-ND
Calling for reinforcements
Scientists, authorities and regulators are requesting more and more support from the public.
Increasingly, we’re seeing requests for data on specific plants, animals and fungi. There are broader requests too, such as data on ecosystems or environmental disasters, from hard-to-reach locations or during critical seasonal windows.
Examples include: FrogWatch SA, Fungi for Function, Waterwatch Victoria, Waterwatch ACT, Ocean Connect, MangroveWatch, Coastsnap, eBird and Where? Where? Wedgie!.
For some citizen scientists, a big drawcard is being able to interact with experts to identify species. Projects co-designed by professional and citizen scientists are likely to become more popular.
There’s more work to be done to link popular citizen science apps with national databases such as the Atlas of Living Australia and TERN’s Data Discovery Portal – and ensuring data is recorded in useful ways.
The more citizen scientists, the better. When enough interested people get outdoors with a smartphone, they can collect vital data and help authorities respond to environmental changes.
Katie Irvine is vice-chair of the South Australian Chapter – Australian Citizen Science Association, and is employed by TERN at Adelaide University.
Ben Sparrow is employed by TERN at Adelaide University. He directs the Ecosystem Surveillance capability.