Citizen Science Butterfly Monitoring: Improving Volunteer Engagement and Data Usability

Community-based monitoring programs produce a wealth of data, but little of it makes into the peer-reviewed literature. These programs face challenges in three areas: organizational issues, data collection issues, and data use issues. This study uses qualitative analysis to examine how these three challenges manifest in citizen science butterfly monitoring programs and how leaders of these program address these issues. Results show that programs that use opportunistic data collection and programs that use structured protocols face similar challenges in all three areas with a few key differences. Based on the challenges programs face and potential approaches programs may take to address these challenges, recommendations are offered for improving volunteer engagement and increasing the usability of butterfly citizen science data by researchers.