The natural history of citizen scientists: Best practices in developing habitat for thriving and effective volunteer melittologists

The need for an extensive workforce when undertaking a statewide native bee survey combined with public interest in pollinators suggests an excellent fit for citizen science. Yet there are few roadmaps available for involving volunteers, many who lack an entomology background, in a specimen-based, large-scale survey. The Oregon Bee Atlas Master Melittologist Program illustrates one success story. Through volunteer surveys, cohort tracking, and formal and informal feedback from volunteers, we have developed guidance for other statewide biodiversity surveys.

We have identified several best practices for state native bee Atlas efforts in working with volunteers. These include: 1) expecting excellence and high capacity; 2) treating volunteers as respected collaborators by providing proper equipment and training, straightforward feedback, and acknowledging their contributions; and 3) keeping the learning pathway open — enabling volunteers to expand use of their talents in ever more meaningful ways, thereby renewing engagement and increasing program capacity. Formal and informal feedback is essential to discovering program improvement opportunities. Though this approach requires significant investment in staff and funding, it delivers a high volume of valuable data — over 130,000 native bee specimens representing over 600 species along with associated floral data have been collected by volunteers since inception of the Master Melittologist program. The program has proven to be replicable and is now being used to train volunteers in one Canadian province and three US states.