Abstract Across the world, many wildlife studies rely on data collected by volunteers. Roadkill studies often rely on data collected by non-experts including road maintenance personnel and volunteers, but data quality control is rarely applied. We investigated whether maintenance personnel correctly identified the species of road-killed mammals along toll roads in Sao Paulo State, Brazil. We investigated 3222 images of road-killed animals and compared the original species descriptions by road maintenance personnel (non-experts) with our identification (experts). We also presented images of alive and road-killed mammals to road maintenance personnel (n = 179) and asked them to describe the species. We found that road maintenance personnel typically correctly identified certain common, large, or highly recognizable species. However, rare or rarely seen species, species that resemble other species (e.g. small wild canids and felids), or species that are not highly recognizable were often misidentified, ambiguously described, or not identified at all. We also found that the ability of road maintenance personnel to correctly identify the most common road-killed small wild canids and felids is dependent on the context. When similar species are rare, road maintenance personnel typically correctly identifies the most common road-killed small wild canids and felids. However, common small canids and felids are not reliably identified if similar species are more abundant. To improve the reliability of species identification by non-experts, we recommend training in species identification, including images with a scale to accompany all roadkill records, and verification of the roadkill records and associated images for selected species by experts.

中文翻译：

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你的数据有多可靠？验证巴西圣保罗州道路维护人员记录的道路死亡哺乳动物的物种识别

摘要 在世界范围内，许多野生动物研究依赖于志愿者收集的数据。Roadkill 研究通常依赖于非专家收集的数据，包括道路维护人员和志愿者，但很少应用数据质量控制。我们调查了维修人员是否正确识别了巴西圣保罗州收费公路沿线的道路死亡哺乳动物种类。我们调查了 3222 幅道路死亡动物的图像，并将道路维护人员（非专家）的原始物种描述与我们的鉴定（专家）进行了比较。我们还向道路维护人员（n = 179）展示了活着的和死于道路的哺乳动物的图像，并要求他们描述该物种。我们发现道路维护人员通常会正确识别某些常见的、大型的或高度可识别的物种。然而，稀有或罕见的物种、与其他物种相似的物种（例如小型野生犬科动物和猫科动物）或不易识别的物种经常被错误识别、描述含糊或根本没有被识别。我们还发现，道路维护人员正确识别最常见的道路死亡小型野生犬科动物和猫科动物的能力取决于上下文。当类似物种稀有时，道路维护人员通常会正确识别最常见的道路死亡小型野生犬科动物和猫科动物。然而，如果相似物种更丰富，则无法可靠地识别常见的小型犬科动物和猫科动物。为了提高非专家识别物种的可靠性，我们建议进行物种识别培训，包括带有比例尺的图像，以配合所有道路杀戮记录，