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Abstract: Collaborative wildlife monitoring programs involving citizen scientists are an efficient approach for surveying large areas. In Europe, hunters play an important role in wildlife monitoring and act as crucial stakeholders in large carnivore conservation. The Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx, an elusive felid, is a species of conservation concern in Europe. In Slovenia, lynx was exterminated and later reintroduced in 1973, but the population has declined during the past decades. A reinforcement program was initiated in 2017, translocating lynx from the Carpathian population to improve the status of the critically endangered Dinaric population. The reinforcement was coupled with an intensive monitoring program, involving local hunters as key participants. In this study, we show how the collaboration between wildlife managers, researchers and hunters resulted in a robust assessment of the lynx population at a national level for a period of five years. Questionnaires distributed to hunting clubs and chance observations were used to define the expected lynx distribution, and guide the extent of systematic camera trapping surveys, involving between 63 and 101 hunters each year. In southern Slovenia, the core of the lynx population, lynx density doubled during the reinforcement period (from 0.66 to 1.30 lynx/100 km2). In north-western Slovenia where a stepping-stone population in the Alps was established in 2021, the number of lynx increased to seven. Furthermore, all three translocated females reproduced, which represents the first confirmed lynx reproduction in the Slovenian Alps in over 150 years. We discuss the motivation behind the hunters' contribution to the data collection process and the implications of this collaboration. We highlight the importance of maintaining the collaboration and their support for lynx conservation. This study serves as an example for large-scale collaborative monitoring of a recovering population undergoing intensive conservation measures with promising results, involving crucial stakeholders as citizen scientists.
Keywords: camera trapping, citizen science, density, reinforcement, spatial capture recapture
Published in DiRROS: 26.01.2026; Views: 285; Downloads: 213
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Abstract: Excessive tree mortality is a global concern and remains poorly understood as it is a complex phenomenon. We lack global and temporally continuous coverage on tree mortality data. Ground-based observations on tree mortality, e.g., derived from national inventories, are very sparse, and may not be standardized or spatially explicit. Earth observation data, combined with supervised machine learning, offer a promising approach to map overstory tree mortality in a consistent manner over space and time. However, global-scale machine learning requires broad training data covering a wide range of environmental settings and forest types. Low altitude observation platforms (e.g., drones or airplanes) provide a cost-effective source of training data by capturing high-resolution orthophotos of overstory tree mortality events at centimeter-scale resolution. Here, we introduce deadtrees.earth, an open-access platform hosting more than two thousand centimeter-resolution orthophotos, covering more than 1,000,000 ha, of which more than 58,000 ha are manually annotated with live/dead tree classifications. This community-sourced and rigorously curated dataset can serve as a comprehensive reference dataset to uncover tree mortality patterns from local to global scales using space-based Earth observation data and machine learning models. This will provide the basis to attribute tree mortality patterns to environmental changes or project tree mortality dynamics to the future. The open nature of deadtrees.earth, together with its curation of high-quality, spatially representative, and ecologically diverse data will continuously increase our capacity to uncover and understand tree mortality dynamics.
Keywords: orthophoto, drone, tree mortality, remote sensing, database, citizen science, forests
Published in DiRROS: 16.01.2026; Views: 337; Downloads: 216
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Abstract: Anthropogenic litter causes significant harm to the environment on a global scale. Achieving international agreements and es-tablishing corresponding national legislation is essential for solving this prevalent environmental problem. Effective monitoringprogrammes are also critical for evaluating the environmental status in aquatic (marine and freshwater) environments, as re-quired by the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in Europe. In contrastto the MSFD, the current version of the WFD does not yet include anthropogenic litter pollution as an indicator to evaluate thestatus of aquatic environments. In order to overcome these shortcomings, we recommend using existing litter data generated bycitizen science initiatives as a baseline to establish relevant indicators in the WFD. Further, citizen scientists could contribute tothe WFD by taking complimentary samples, for example, at underrepresented smaller streams, adding context and value to datacollected at established monitoring stations. The involvement of citizens as actors within an EU Directive would not only help toobtain valuable data on a significant spatial and temporal scale but could potentially also increase the environmental awarenessand political engagement of the public. The upcoming revision cycle of the WFD in 2028 presents a unique opportunity to givecitizens a voice and opportunity to partake in EU legislative frameworks.
Keywords: anthropogenic litter, citizen science, EU legislation participation, plastic pollution, Water Framework Directive (WFD)
Published in DiRROS: 18.08.2025; Views: 589; Downloads: 372
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Keywords: floating litter, microplastic, European rivers, Restore ou ocean and waters, citizen science
Published in DiRROS: 09.06.2025; Views: 854; Downloads: 621
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Abstract: Based on the intensive monitoring conducted by our team and volunteers in 2021, the secondary range of an alien horse-chestnut leaf miner, Cameraria ohridella Deschka & Dimić, 1986 (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae), was specified in European Russia. This invasive pest was confirmed in 24 out of 58 administrative regions of Russia, which it has occupied for approximately 16 years. Analysis of the COI mtDNA gene sequenced in 201 specimens collected in 21 regions of the European part of Russia indicates the occurrence of two haplotypes (A and B), which are also present in the secondary range of C. ohridella in Eastern and Western Europe. The haplotype A dominated and was present in 87.5% of specimens from European Russia. In 2021, C. ohridella produced spectacular outbreaks in Aesculus hippocastanum in southern Russia, where it damaged more than 50% of the leaves in trees in 24 out of 30 distant localities. In the south of the country, the pest infested Acer pseudoplatanus, whereas other species of Acer of European, East Asian, and North American origin showed no signs of attacks. Taking into account that Ae. hippocastanum is present in most regions of European Russia, we expect a further range expansion of C. ohridella up to the Ural Mountains.
Keywords: leaf-mining moth, invasion, European Russia, citizen science, DNA barcoding, phylogeography, Aesculus, Acer, damage level
Published in DiRROS: 17.01.2025; Views: 969; Downloads: 664
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