The latest issue (April 23rd) of 《Nature》published the paper jointly wrote by Professor Huang Xiaolei, the Minjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor of College of Plant Protection of FAFU, and Dr. Zhang Jian from the Bio-informatics and Biological Diversity Center of Aarhus University of Denmark in the form of Correspondence, titled “China needs more monitoring apps”（Nature, 2015, 520: 436）. The article pointed out the opportunities and problems faced by citizen science in China, and also gave some suggestions. The research unit of the second author was FAFU.
The citizen science is the scientific research participated by the citizens, it means the scientific research activities paricipated by the unprofessional scientists, the science amateurs and the volunteers, and it includes the exploring of scientific questions, data collection and analysis, etc.
With the support of the development of information and network technologies, the roles of citizen science projects in the investigation of biodiversity, tracing of invasive pests, ecological protection and environmental monitoring, etc. attracted more and more attention. Although China has a large population, the development of citizen science has several problems such as the starting is late, the participation rate is not high, the data quality control is weak, and the capacity of project management and information integration is low.
In December 2013, zhang jian and Huang Xiaolei and several other colleagues jointly published the first Chinese review article titled "Citizen science: integration of scientific research, ecological protection and public participation" in the Biological Diversity Journal, (http://www.biodiversity-science.net/CN/abstract/abstract9808.shtml) which aimed at systematically introducing the progress of the citizen scientific at home and abroad, and promoting the development of citizen science in China. They also started to construct the "Chinese citizen science project platform" web site.
This time, the two scientists gave some specific suggestions on the development of the Chinese citizen science in the paper published in《Nature》, such as: the development and application of the smartphones for the biodiversity and environmental monitoring, the active participation and guidance by scientists, and the increase of supports by the government’s funding agencies to citizen science projects, etc.
Correspondant/Phtogragher: College of Plant Protection Lin Shifa
Translator: Zheng Wei
Auditor: College of Crop Science Lu Yunhai