Naslov
"Citizens sciences" campaign in search for a forgotten insect

Autori
Virić Gašparić ; Helena, Mikac, Katarina M. ; Galešić, Marija A. ; Orešković, M. ; Pajač Živković ; I ; Lemic, D.

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
International Firefly Symposium - Abstract book / - , 2022, 62-62

Skup
International Firefly Symposium

Mjesto i datum
Avintes, Portugal, 15.06.2022. - 18.06.2022

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
fireflies, citizen science, population abundance

Sažetak
In recent years, there has been a purported decrease in the number of fireflies in the Republic of Croatia. It is speculated that this has occurred because of a combination of habitat loss due to urbanization and an associated increase in light pollution ; the latter interfering with the lifecycle of fireflies. As a result, concerned scientist and students from the University of Zagreb and the University of Wollongong Australia launched a citizen science campaign in 2019 called ‘Krešo Krijesnica’ and is still going. Starting in May 2019 the campaign organisers enlisted the help of Croatian media outlets to call citizen scientists to arms to help understand whether there truly was a decline in firefly numbers throughout Croatia or whether fireflies in Croatia had simply been forgotten. Through emails, Facebook and Instagram pages, firefly reports, including images and videos, from across the whole of Croatia were collected. The campaign relied heavily on the use of media (radio, print and online) to advertise the campaign. Media was used to educate Croatians about firefly biology, their identification and collection of data and how to report their data. Citizen scientist reported fireflies were collected throughout the spring and summer of 2019-2021. In total, over 1700 reports from all over Croatia were collected and processed during the campaign and over 400 photographs and videos were analysed. The processing of the collected data has identified over 10, 000 individuals (mostly males, though females too) belonging to four species: Lampyris noctilua, Lampyris germariensis, Lamprohiza splendidula, Luciola italica). The main findings of ‘Krešo Krijesnica’ were that the number of fireflies in Croatia was significantly higher than expected with a greater number of species than previously reported. Future work will build on the success of the Krešo Krijesnica citizen science campaign and move towards formal scientific surveys of the four species identified as well as population genetic analyses.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Poljoprivreda (agronomija)

POVEZANOST RADA