Research portal

Dutch

Extracting secondary data from citizen science images reveals host flower preferences of the Mexican grass-carrying wasp Isodontia mexicana in its native and introduced ranges

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

  • Nadja Pernat
  • Daniyar Memedemin
  • Tom August
  • Cristina Preda
  • Lien Reyserhove
  • Jens Schirmel
  • Quentin Groom
Abstract We investigated the plant-pollinator interactions of the Mexican grass-carrying wasp Isodontia mexicana—native to North America and introduced in Europe in the 1960s—through the use of secondary data from citizen science observations. We applied a novel data exchange workflow from two global citizen science platforms, iNaturalist and Pl@ntNet. Images from iNaturalist of the wasp were used to query the Pl@ntNet application to identify possible plant species present in the pictures. Simultaneously, botanists manually identified the plants at family, genus and species levels and additionally documented flower color and biotic interactions. The goals were to calibrate Pl@ntNet's accuracy in relation to this workflow, update the list of plant species that I. mexicana visits as well as its flower color preferences in its native and introduced ranges. In addition, we investigated the types and corresponding frequencies of other biotic interactions incidentally captured on the citizen scientists' images. Although the list of known host plants could be expanded, identifying the flora from images that predominantly show an insect proved difficult for both experts and the Pl@ntNet app. The workflow performs with a 75.8, and with over 90.5. Although the number of images above these scores may be limited due to the flower parts present on the pictures, our approach can help to get an overview into species interactions and generate more specific research questions. It could be used as a triaging method to select images for further investigation. Additionally, the manual analysis of the images has shown that the information they contain offers great potential for learning more about the ecology of an introduced species in its new range.
Original languageEnglish
JournalEcology and Evolution
Volume14
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)e11537
ISSN2045-7758
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

e11537 ECE-2023-09-01633.R1

Projects

Log in to Pure