How Much of the Forest Do Citizen Scientists Actually Record? A Decade of iNaturalist Sampling in the Hyrcanian Forests
Abstract
Citizen-science records increasingly inform biodiversity research and conservation planning, yet how much of a large forest they actually cover is rarely measured. We analyzed 1,700 research-grade iNaturalist records from the Hyrcanian Forest, northern Iran (2015–2025), on a 10 × 10 km grid, comparing observed coverage with null models. Annual records rose from 48 to 386, but occupied only 43.7% of forest cells, 41% fewer than an even spread would give, and 56% of cells had no record. Fifteen observers (top 10%) provided 69% of records. In a presence–background model with clus-ter-robust errors, only elevation was independently associated with record presence (odds ratio 0.92 per 100 m); distances to roads and settlements were not. Because steep terrain limits where people can walk and record, similar eleva-tion-related gaps may occur in other mountain forests, where record counts could overstate coverage. Models using such records should adjust for elevation bias.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{sorboni2026much,
title = {{How Much of the Forest Do Citizen Scientists Actually Record? A Decade of iNaturalist Sampling in the Hyrcanian Forests}},
author = {Saman Ghasemian Sorboni and Motahareh Taghipour},
howpublished = {EcoEvoRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.32942/x2zx10},
url = {https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/15716/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - How Much of the Forest Do Citizen Scientists Actually Record? A Decade of iNaturalist Sampling in the Hyrcanian Forests
AU - Saman Ghasemian Sorboni
AU - Motahareh Taghipour
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
PB - EcoEvoRxiv
DO - 10.32942/x2zx10
UR - https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/15716/
AB - Citizen-science records increasingly inform biodiversity research and conservation planning, yet how much of a large forest they actually cover is rarely measured. We analyzed 1,700 research-grade iNaturalist records from the Hyrcanian Forest, northern Iran (2015–2025), on a 10 × 10 km grid, comparing observed coverage with null models. Annual records rose from 48 to 386, but occupied only 43.7% of forest cells, 41% fewer than an even spread would give, and 56% of cells had no record. Fifteen observers (top 10%) provided 69% of records. In a presence–background model with clus-ter-robust errors, only elevation was independently associated with record presence (odds ratio 0.92 per 100 m); distances to roads and settlements were not. Because steep terrain limits where people can walk and record, similar eleva-tion-related gaps may occur in other mountain forests, where record counts could overstate coverage. Models using such records should adjust for elevation bias.
ER -