Monitoring of forest pests and diseases is resource-intensive, requiring individual woodlands and trees to be visited and assessed for symptoms. Climate change and increased global connectivity are amplifying the scale of the monitoring challenge, with the number of new plant biosecurity threats increasing each year. Citizen science can increase the scale of pest and disease surveys. However, it is argued that citizen science data can be biased and inaccurate. This study examines potential biases in citizen science data by focusing on the case study of acute oak decline (AOD), a disease syndrome impacting native oaks within the UK associated with the beetle Agrilus biguttatus. Analysis was performed using two contrasting citizen science data set sources: the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas, which is a repository for citizen science data sets, and Tree Alert, a targeted citizen science project that encouraged landowners and the public to report the occurrence of AOD. For both data sets, detection was more likely in locations with higher Coleoptera reports, suggesting that there are hubs of recorder activity. For the NBN data set, A. biguttatus was more likely to be found in areas where historic parks and gardens were present. For the Tree Alert data set, A. biguttatus was less likely to be found on open access land, indicating that the programme was successful in engaging private landowners. These results indicate that understanding sources of bias within reporting schemes is an important step in data analysis and that the inclusion of structured survey designs would enable the extent of biases to be documented.

中文翻译：

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通过公民科学监测增强植物的生物安全性：比较使用橡树急性衰退报告的方法

森林病虫害的监测是资源密集型的，需要参观各个林地和树木并评估其症状。气候变化和增强的全球连通性正在扩大监测挑战的规模，新植物生物安全威胁的数量每年都在增加。公民科学可以扩大病虫害调查的规模。但是，有人认为公民科学数据可能有偏见且不准确。这项研究通过关注急性橡树衰落（AOD）的案例研究来检验公民科学数据中的潜在偏见，急性橡树衰落（AOD）是一种影响英国境内与甲虫Agrilus biguttatus相关的天然橡树的疾病综合征。分析是使用两种截然不同的公民科学数据集来进行的：国家生物多样性网络（NBN）地图集是公民科学数据集的存储库，以及Tree Alert，这是一个有针对性的公民科学项目，旨在鼓励土地所有者和公众报告发生的情况AOD。对于这两个数据集，在鞘翅目报告较高的位置更可能进行检测，这表明存在记录器活动的枢纽。对于NBN数据集，在有历史公园和花园的地区更容易发现大根曲霉。对于树警报数据集，A。biguttatus在开放式土地上被发现的可能性较小，这表明该计划成功地吸引了私人土地所有者。这些结果表明，理解报告计划中的偏差来源是数据分析中的重要一步，并且结构化调查设计的纳入将使偏差的程度得以记录。