
Can Citizens Identify Tropical Trees?
A new study published in PLoS ONE compares community members and trained scientists' data on tree diversity in tropical forest in China. The study showed that representatives of the local Yi community members can collect tree diversity data of comparable quality to trained botanists, at one third the cost. Without access to herbaria, identification guides or the Internet, the community members could provide the ethno-taxonomical names for 95% of 1071 trees in 60 vegetation pl