RASCals at 50,000: By the Numbers
The Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California project just topped 50,000 observations! Let’s take a look back to consider all of the amazing people who have contributed observations, the stunning critters that have been documented, and the fun science that has resulted from these efforts.
Over 7,000 Amazing Community Scientists
Community science (also called citizen science) is often termed “crowdsourcing,” and the success of the RASCals project is entirely dependent on a truly remarkable crowd of observant naturalists. On the RASCals project page, the stats show that 6,927 people have contributed observations, but hundreds of people have also contributed observations through the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Nature in L.A. account through social media, e-mail, and text message submissions. Thus, the actual number of contributors is close to 7,500!116 Native Species and 55 Non-native Species
Yes, that’s correct, 171 species of reptiles and amphibians! This number still shocks us. Southern California is home to diverse habitats from beaches to deserts to mountains over 11,000 feet tall. Some people have been lucky enough to see a Green Sea Turtle, Olive Ridley Sea Turtle, or even one of the few Yellow-bellied Sea Snakes ever documented in California. Others have recorded some of our higher elevation species like Northern and Southern Rubber Boas, Sagebrush Lizards, and San Gabriel Mountain Slender Salamanders.Unfortunately, with 22.5 million people and a relatively mild climate, many non-native species get introduced to Southern California, and some of these species become established. RASCals participants have documented 55 species of non-native reptiles and amphibians. Fortunately, most of these are escaped or released pets with no evidence of established populations in the area. However, others are thriving, and some, such as the American Bullfrog, Red-eared Slider, African Clawed Frog, Italian Wall Lizard, Green Anole, Brown Anole, and African Five-lined Skink are negatively impacting our native species. Community science provides an especially important method of improving detection of non-native species so that their impacts and any potential eradication strategies can be evaluated. As described below in the publication section, observations contributed to RASCals have been essential in documenting the arrival of non-native species and in tracking their spread once they are established.
12,799 Western Fence Lizards and 5782 Southern Alligator Lizards
Of the 171 documented species, 61 have five or fewer observations, and 25 of these have only a single observation. On the other end of the spectrum are our two most common lizards---25% of all RASCals observations are of the Western Fence Lizard. To me, this is especially positive because this is a species that doesn’t do that well in many urban neighborhoods. They are frequently documented because where they do occur, they are quite conspicuous as they bask prominently and do their push-up and head bob displays. Just because fence lizard observations are common does not mean each of these observations is not important. These 12,799 observations are especially useful to understand what aspects of urban areas affect whether or not fence lizards will survive there. Stay tuned for future posts about this exact subject, in which observations of our two most common salamanders are used to understand their distributions in urban areas.Although less commonly observed than the Western Fence Lizard, the Southern Alligator Lizard is the most widespread lizard in urban areas of Southern California. This species has also been a major focus of research efforts with ongoing studies using RASCals observations to study mating behavior and to study how predation and parasitism vary from urban to rural locations. Stay tuned for future posts as these studies are published.
Over 14 Peer-reviewed Publications or Research Reports
At its core, community science IS science. iNaturalist observations are real data that can be used for many different analyses. RASCals was started to document the current distributions of reptiles and amphibians throughout Southern California. More specifically, the hope was 1) to document reptile and amphibian species to understand how they were responding to urbanization, and 2) to document and track introduced species. If this community science effort is “real science”, then the result should be easily measurable, as real science generates peer-reviewed publications and research reports that can impact conservation and land management decisions.Over the last 8 years, RASCals data have been used for at least 14 publications and research reports. It’s challenging to keep track of all of the scientific publications that have used observations contributed to the RASCals project because researchers can use many records without crediting the project or informing RASCals or iNaturalist scientists. Thus, the actual number is certainly higher than 14, but 14 is the number summing across our own publications and those of other authors that we can quickly remember as we write this.
Analyses of RASCals observations have been published in high profile outlets like Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution and Biological Conservation. A second paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution used thousands of RASCals observations from across the L.A. area; in total, that analysis, which was termed BAILA for Biodiversity Analysis in Los Angeles, used nearly 60,000 iNaturalist observations contributed by over 10,000 community scientists (obviously more than just the RASCals observations were used in that analysis)!
Sometimes a single observation is enough to trigger a research publication. Often such observations are those that document the first records of non-native species in California, such as Indo-Pacific House Geckos in Torrance or African Five-lined Skinks in the San Gabriel Valley. Another recent publication was based on a new high elevation record for the Southern Alligator Lizard, with the resulting publication referencing a number of other iNaturalist observations that were also from higher elevations. For all three of these publications, the original observer co-authored the manuscript, highlighting that community scientists can take part in the entirety of the scientific process from making observations to publishing research results in the peer-reviewed literature.
RASCals observations have also been used as part of several urban biodiversity assessments in the Los Angeles area. In these cases, the RASCals observations supplemented sampling by field biologists. The RASCals observations were especially important in providing species occurrence records from private property that the professional scientists could not easily survey themselves. These helped to inform management recommendations along the Los Angeles River and in the Baldwin Hills.
Comentarios
Excellent! Nice summary, Greg!
What an accomplishment. Congratulations Greg and all contributors!
Congrats, Greg! 100k observations will be here before you know it!
It is such an honor to be a part of such great project. Thank you Greg for all you do.
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