community science

A pact across continents or how ethical volunteering and 40 years of otter science are rewriting conservation

Bridging 40 years of otter science and global eco-volunteering, Projeto Lontra and Estuarine Management and Technologies invite research for a topical collection.

Guest blog post by Dr. Oldemar de Oliveira Carvalho Junior

After 40 years of protecting the Neotropical otter, Projeto Lontra is opening a new chapter. We are calling on researchers to contribute to the “Otters as Bioindicators of Estuarine Health” Topical Collection in the journal Estuarine Management and Technologies, bridging the gap between long-term field observations to innovations in the field.

This call is a natural evolution of a story that began in January 1986. On the wild shores of Peri Lagoon in southern Brazil, my father and I stood beneath the canopy of the Atlantic Forest and dreamed aloud: What if we could protect this place by protecting its most elusive guardian, the Neotropical otter?

Neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis). Photo credit to Projeto Lontra and Instituto Ekko Brasil
Swimming neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis). Photo credit to Projeto Lontra and Instituto Ekko Brasil

That dream became Projeto Lontra. For forty years, we have walked these shores not as distant scientists, but as neighbors, listening to the water, reading the spraints, and learning from fishers who’ve known these lagoons longer than any journal has existed.

But conservation cannot be a solitary act. And so, in the early 2000s, a quiet revolution began. People of all ages from France, Germany, and beyond started arriving, not as tourists, but as eco-volunteers through different international organizations, such as Cybelle Planète. They came not to “save” us, but to stand with us.

Eco-volunteers installing a trap camera inside an otter cave. Credit to *Projeto Lontra* and Instituto Ekko Brasil

This is the heart of our partnership: reciprocity, not rescue.

More Than Volunteering. A Model of Shared Stewardship

Cybelle Planète does not sell travel; rather, it cultivates responsibility. Their volunteers spend weeks living alongside our team, collecting spraints at dawn, mapping latrines, teaching in local schools, and planting native trees. They return home not just with photos, but with data that feeds into global assessments, and with a transformed understanding of what it means to care for a shared planet.

As one Cybelle Planète coordinator once told me:

We don’t promote travel. We promote responsibility.

This ethos mirrors our own. In Brazil, conservation has too often been framed as a deficit, something we lack, something others must fix. But Projeto Lontra has always believed that local knowledge is expertise and long-term presence is data. Our 40-year dataset, born from patience, not satellites, is proof.

Eco-volunteers from Australia and New Zealand. Credit to Projeto Lontra and Instituto Ekko Brasil
Playing with the otters. Credit to Projeto Lontra and Instituto Ekko Brasil
Eco-volunteer at an expedition. Credit to Projeto Lontra and Instituto Ekko Brasil

Now, this partnership takes on new scientific weight as a cornerstone of the Scientific Journal Estuarine Management and Technologies and its Topical Collection “Otters as Bioindicators of Estuarine Health.” But rather than spotlight methods or metrics, we want to spotlight people and the relationships that make science meaningful.

Voices of the Collaboration

To truly reflect the spirit of this alliance, we invited key voices to share their vision:

Nosso papel não é promover viagens, mas cultivar a responsabilidade – de longo prazo, recíproca e fundamentada na confiança entre os atores locais da conservação e os cidadãos internacionais.

(Our role is not to promote travel, but to foster responsibility – long-term, reciprocal, and grounded in trust between local conservation actors and international citizens.)
Celine – Cybelle Planète Leadership – Vision Statement Placeholder

We are reminded that research and materials produced outside traditional commercial or academic sectors can be just as important.

For over 30 years, the Bulletin has amplified voices from the Global South that commercial journals overlook. Projeto Lontra’s legacy reminds us that grey literature is often golden and that true bioindicator science grows from the ground up.
Dr. Arno Gutleb, IUCN Otter Specialist Group Bulletin

A Call to Join the Movement

Neotropical otter (*Lontra longicaudis*). Photo credit to: *Projeto Lontra* and Instituto Ekko Brasil

This isn’t just a story about otters. It’s about a new way of doing conservation:

Municipalities can use tools like the Otter Health Index (OHI) to monitor their estuaries without million-dollar labs.
Researchers can contribute to a truly global bioindicator framework that centers tropical species.
Eco-volunteers can join hands-on programs that generate real data while fostering cross-cultural understanding.

And everyone – scientist, student, and citizen – can engage with the “Otters as Bioindicators” Topical Collection to help shift the narrative from extraction to exchange, from hierarchy to humility.

Because in the end, the otter teaches us this: ecosystems are woven from connection. So too must be our efforts to protect them.

Explore the Topical Collection: Otters as Bioindicators – EMT
Learn about volunteering with Cybelle Planète: www.cybelle-planete.org
Read the foundational synthesis paper: Otters as Bioindicators of Estuarine Health

5000 Students run ‘bee hotels’ across Canada – DNA reveals who’s checking in

Students at the forefront of conservation or how community science helps gather data on cavity-nesting bees and wasps, enhancing our understanding of ecosystem interactions.

Can students be the front lines of conservation? A new Canada-wide study, published in Metabarcoding and Metagenomics, suggests they can. The efforts of some 5000 students produced data detailed enough to reveal complex ecological networks hidden inside a small PVC and cardboard tube home.

A trap nest installed at a Bees@Schools community science location. Multiple tubes nested in are visible. Photo credit to Sage Handler.

They invited schools to volunteer across Canada to install standardised ‘trap nests’ – simple PVC pipe and cardboard tube homes that mimic natural cavities where bees and wasps build nests.

Cavity-nesting bees and wasps play key roles in pollination and pest control, yet their distributions and feeding relationships are often poorly known because they can be small, secretive and difficult to observe directly.

As part of the Bees@Schools community science program, researchers Sage Handler (University of Guelph), Nigel Raine (University of Guelph), and Dirk Steinke (University of Guelph) aimed to address this.

Nesting tubes gathered from one trap nest, ready to be cut open and processed.
Photo credit to Sage Handler.

Instead of relying only on traditional identification under a microscope, the researchers used DNA metabarcoding – a method that reads DNA from mixed samples and can detect many species at once.

This allowed the team to identify not only which bee or wasp species built each nest, but also which plant pollen or insect prey were brought back as food. The result was a rich, detailed view of both where cavity-nesting bee and wasp species live and how they interact with plants and other insects.

Rainbow pollen prepared for DNA metabarcoding — A rainbow of pollen prepared for DNA metabarcoding.
Credit: Sage Handler

cavity-nesting bee nest — A rainbow of pollen prepared for DNA metabarcoding.
Credit: Sage Handler

A key outcome of the study was the creation of tripartite networks: maps linking (1) the nesting bee or wasp, (2) its food (pollen or insect prey) and (3) parasites. This kind of network is extremely difficult to build through observation alone, but trap nests can act like tiny ecological time capsules.

Every brood cell contains biological traces and metabarcoding can recover them. Students weren’t just collecting insects, they were collecting entire ecological interaction datasets: the raw material needed to build food-web maps across a whole country!

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A lot of people want to contribute to conservation or learn more about biodiversity, but don’t know how. This shows that a small, practical action, like hosting a trap nest, can contribute real data that researchers can use. Community and citizen science is becoming more common, so keep an eye out for research happening in your neighbourhood.
says Handler, the lead author of the study

Original resource:

Handler S, Coveny K, Braukmann TWA, Raine NE, Steinke D (2026) Welcome to Hotel Hymenoptera: monitoring cavity-nesting bee and wasp distribution and their trophic interactions using community science and metabarcoding. Metabarcoding and Metagenomics 10: e139674. https://doi.org/10.3897/mbmg.10.139674

High school students replicate insect study from 40 years ago

The goal was to examine how the carrion beetle population has changed over the years.

Over forty years ago, Menno Schilthuizen, while still a high school student, conducted a study on carrion beetles at the Lichtenbeek estate near Arnhem. Using small traps baited with meat and other attractants, he recorded over a thousand beetles in the spring of 1982, meticulously documenting the species and their numbers.

A scan of a handwritten data table listing various species, their pot numbers, and numerical counts, with "Familie Cholevidae" noted at the bottom. — Field notes from 1982.

A scan of a hand-written data table listing various species and corresponding numerical values. — Field notes from 1982.

Four decades on, Schilthuizen (now a professor of evolution and biodiversity at Leiden University) and his team collaborated with high school students from the Thomas a Kempis College in Arnhem to replicate the study with precision: at the same location, using the same methods, on the same dates. The goal was to examine how the carrion beetle population has changed over the years. Their findings have been published in the Biodiversity Data Journal; the article can be viewed online here.

A photo of three people doing research in a lush green forest, with one kneeling on the ground and others examining a device. — Fieldwork.

Key findings: shifts in biodiversity

The high school students analysed the beetles that they collected. Their research revealed that some carrion beetle species have disappeared, while other, new species have appeared. However, the overall number of species and population densities have remained largely the same.

A photo of a teenage boy carefully pinning beetle specimens on a white surface, surrounded by lab equipment and tools. — Sorting and mounting specimens.

A photo of two teenagers working and laughing in a laboratory setting, surrounded by microscopes, glass jars, and various scientific tools on a table. — Sorting and mounting specimens.

One striking discovery was that common species have become even more abundant, while rare species have become even rarer. This widening gap in species commonness suggests a decline in biodiversity, which could signal the potential local extinction of the rarer species.

A citizen science initiative

The research was initiated by the Taxon Foundation, a nonprofit set up and headed by Schilthuizen, in collaboration with biology teacher Leonie Wezendonk of the Thomas a Kempis College. Taxon foundation specializes in biodiversity research conducted by school children, local residents, and other community scientists. The project was made possible through funding from the Netherlands Cultuurfonds and the Suzanne Hovinga Foundation.

Research article:

Schilthuizen M, van der Sterren T, Kersten I, Groenhof M, van der Meulen H, Wezendonk L (2025) Resampling a carrion beetle fauna after 40 years (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Silphinae, and Leiodidae, Cholevinae). Biodiversity Data Journal 13: e151206. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.13.e151206

Volunteer “community scientists” do a pretty darn good job generating usable data

When museum-goers did a community science activity in an exhibit at the Field Museum (USA), the data they produced were largely accurate.

**Left:** *Cuong Pham, Jimmy Crigler, and Joshua Torres working on a community science platform in an exhibit at the Field Museum (photo by Melanie Pivarski, Roosevelt University).*
**Right:** *The microscopic leaves of a liverwort, a primitive plant that helps scientists track climate change (photo by Lauren Johnson, Field Museum*).

Original publication by the Field Museum

Ask any scientist — for every “Eureka!” moment, there’s a lot of less-than-glamorous work behind the scenes. Making discoveries about everything from a new species of dinosaur to insights about climate change entails some slogging through seemingly endless data and measurements that can be mind-numbing in large doses.

Community science shares the burden with volunteers who help out, for even just a few minutes, on collecting data and putting it into a format that scientists can use. But the question remains how useful these data actually are for scientists.

A new study, authored by a combination of high school students, undergrads and grad students, and professional scientists showed that when museum-goers did a community science activity in an exhibit, the data they produced were largely accurate, supporting the argument that community science is a viable way to tackle big research projects.

“It was surprising how all age groups from young children, families, youth, and adults were able to generate high-quality taxonomic data sets, making observations and preparing measurements, and at the same time empowering community scientists through authentic contributions to science,”
says Matt von Konrat (Field Museum, USA), an author of the paper in the journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal) and the head of plant collections at Chicago’s Field Museum.

“This study demonstrates the wonderful scientific outcomes that occur when an entire community comes together,”
says Melanie Pivarski, an associate professor of mathematics at Roosevelt University (USA) and the study’s lead author.

“We were able to combine a small piece of the Field Museum’s vast collections, their scientific knowledge and exhibit creation expertise, the observational skills of biology interns at Northeastern Illinois University (USA), led by our collaborator Tom Campbell, and our Roosevelt University student’s data science expertise. The creation of this set of high-quality data was a true community effort!”

The study focuses on an activity in an exhibition at the Field Museum, in which visitors could partake in a community science project. In the community science activity, museumgoers used a large digital touchscreen to measure the microscopic leaves photographs of plants called liverworts.

These tiny plants, the size of an eyelash, are sensitive to climate change, and they can act like a canary in a coal mine to let scientists know about how climate change is affecting a region. It’s helpful for scientists to know what kinds of liverworts are present in an area, but since the plants are so tiny, it’s hard to tell them apart. The sizes of their leaves (or rather, lobes — these are some of the most ancient land plants on Earth, and they evolved before true leaves had formed) can hint at their species. But it would take ages for any one scientist to measure all the leaves of the specimens in the Field’s collection. Enter the community scientists.

“Drawing a fine line to measure the lobe of a liverwort for a few hours can be mentally strenuous, so it’s great to have community scientists take a few minutes out of their day using fresh eyes to help measure a plant leaf. A few community scientists who’ve helped with classifying acknowledged how exciting it is knowing they are playing a helping hand in scientific discovery,”
says Heaven Wade, a research assistant at the Field Museum who began working on the MicroPlants project as an undergraduate intern.

Community scientists using the digital platform measured thousands of microscopic liverwort leaves over the course of two years.

“At the beginning, we needed to find a way to sort the high quality measurements out from the rest. We didn’t know if there would be kids drawing pictures on the touchscreen instead of measuring leaves or if they’d be able to follow the tutorial as well as the adults did. We also needed to be able to automate a method to determine the accuracy of these higher quality measurements,”
says Pivarski.

To answer these questions, Pivarski worked with her students at Roosevelt University to analyze the data. They compared measurements taken by the community scientists with measurements done by experts on a couple “test” lobes; based on that proof of concept, they went on to analyze the thousands of other leaf measurements. The results were surprising.

“We were amazed at how wonderfully children did at this task; it was counter to our initial expectations. The majority of measurements were high quality. This allowed my students to create an automated process that produced an accurate set of MicroPlant measurements from the larger dataset,”
says Pivarski.

The researchers say that the study supports the argument that community science is valuable not just as a teaching tool to get people interested in science, but as a valid means of data collection.

“Biological collections are uniquely poised to inform the stewardship of life on Earth in a time of cataclysmic biodiversity loss, yet efforts to fully leverage collections are impeded by a lack of trained taxonomists. Crowd-sourced data collection projects like these have the potential to greatly accelerate biodiversity discovery and documentation from digital images of scientific specimens,”
says von Konrat.

Research article:

Pivarski M, von Konrat M, Campbell T, Qazi-Lampert AT, Trouille L, Wade H, Davis A, Aburahmeh S, Aguilar J, Alb C, Alferes K, Barker E, Bitikofer K, Boulware KJ, Bruton C, Cao S, Corona Jr. A, Christian C, Demiri K, Evans D, Evans NM, Flavin C, Gillis J, Gogol V, Heublein E, Huang E, Hutchinson J, Jackson C, Jackson OR, Johnson L, Kirihara M, Kivarkis H, Kowalczyk A, Labontu A, Levi B, Lyu I, Martin-Eberhardt S, Mata G, Martinec JL, McDonald B, Mira M, Nguyen M, Nguyen P, Nolimal S, Reese V, Ritchie W, Rodriguez J, Rodriguez Y, Shuler J, Silvestre J, Simpson G, Somarriba G, Ssozi R, Suwa T, Syring C, Thirthamattur N, Thompson K, Vaughn C, Viramontes MR, Wong CS, Wszolek L (2022) People-Powered Research and Experiential Learning: Unravelling Hidden Biodiversity. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8: e83853. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.8.e83853

Tag: community science