Hands on Biofilm! Utilizing a public audience in a citizen science project to assess yield variability when culturing kombucha pellicle.

The pellicle biofilm generated during the Kombucha tea fermentation process has, when dried, textile-like properties that may have real-life applications. However, pellicle yield can vary depending on inoculation and incubation conditions, which affects research investigations on the properties of the pellicle. To generate data on variability to help define optimum pellicle growth conditions, as part of a public engagement event about biofilm, a citizen science activity was hosted whereby visitors to a science festival were invited to select incubation conditions and inoculate different media with liquid or solid (pellicle). More than 220 samples were inoculated (in excess of 1200 visitors, mainly in family groups). The most popular incubation conditions were coconut water or tea medium, 30°C/room temperature and liquid inoculum. The most productive/reproducible in terms of yield and variability were tea medium, 30°C, and liquid inoculum, which reflect some of the conditions most used in the domestic setting for kombucha culture. The event provided both useful research data and generated public interest in a research area of which many will have been unaware. Interest in the results of the activity, available several weeks after the activity, was sustained using email contact and FlickR for the dissemination of images and data.

Illness duration and symptom profile in symptomatic UK school-aged children tested for SARS-CoV-2.

BACKGROUND: In children, SARS-CoV-2 infection is usually asymptomatic or causes a mild illness of short duration. Persistent illness has been reported; however, its prevalence and characteristics are unclear. We aimed to determine illness duration and characteristics in symptomatic UK school-aged children tested for SARS-CoV-2 using data from the COVID Symptom Study, one of the largest UK citizen participatory epidemiological studies to date. METHODS: In this prospective cohort study, data from UK school-aged children (age 5-17 years) were reported by an adult proxy. Participants were voluntary, and used a mobile application (app) launched jointly by Zoe Limited and King's College London. Illness duration and symptom prevalence, duration, and burden were analysed for children testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 for whom illness duration could be determined, and were assessed overall and for younger (age 5-11 years) and older (age 12-17 years) groups. Children with longer than 1 week between symptomatic reports on the app were excluded from analysis. Data from symptomatic children testing negative for SARS-CoV-2, matched 1:1 for age, gender, and week of testing, were also assessed. FINDINGS: 258 790 children aged 5-17 years were reported by an adult proxy between March 24, 2020, and Feb 22, 2021, of whom 75 529 had valid test results for SARS-CoV-2. 1734 children (588 younger and 1146 older children) had a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result and calculable illness duration within the study timeframe (illness onset between Sept 1, 2020, and Jan 24, 2021). The most common symptoms were headache (1079 [62·2%] of 1734 children), and fatigue (954 [55·0%] of 1734 children). Median illness duration was 6 days (IQR 3-11) versus 3 days (2-7) in children testing negative, and was positively associated with age (Spearman's rank-order rs 0·19, p<0·0001). Median illness duration was longer for older children (7 days, IQR 3-12) than younger children (5 days, 2-9). 77 (4·4%) of 1734 children had illness duration of at least 28 days, more commonly in older than younger children (59 [5·1%] of 1146 older children vs 18 [3·1%] of 588 younger children; p=0·046). The commonest symptoms experienced by these children during the first 4 weeks of illness were fatigue (65 [84·4%] of 77), headache (60 [77·9%] of 77), and anosmia (60 [77·9%] of 77); however, after day 28 the symptom burden was low (median 2 symptoms, IQR 1-4) compared with the first week of illness (median 6 symptoms, 4-8). Only 25 (1·8%) of 1379 children experienced symptoms for at least 56 days. Few children (15 children, 0·9%) in the negatively tested cohort had symptoms for at least 28 days; however, these children experienced greater symptom burden throughout their illness (9 symptoms, IQR 7·7-11·0 vs 8, 6-9) and after day 28 (5 symptoms, IQR 1·5-6·5 vs 2, 1-4) than did children who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. INTERPRETATION: Although COVID-19 in children is usually of short duration with low symptom burden, some children with COVID-19 experience prolonged illness duration. Reassuringly, symptom burden in these children did not increase with time, and most recovered by day 56. Some children who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 also had persistent and burdensome illness. A holistic approach for all children with persistent illness during the pandemic is appropriate. FUNDING: Zoe Limited, UK Government Department of Health and Social Care, Wellcome Trust, UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK Research and Innovation London Medical Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Centre for Value Based Healthcare, UK National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation, and Alzheimer's Society.

Citizen science reveals unexpected solute patterns in semiarid river networks.

Human modification of water and nutrient flows has resulted in widespread degradation of aquatic ecosystems. The resulting global water crisis causes millions of deaths and trillions of USD in economic damages annually. Semiarid regions have been disproportionately affected because of high relative water demand and pollution. Many proven water management strategies are not fully implemented, partially because of a lack of public engagement with freshwater ecosystems. In this context, we organized a large citizen science initiative to quantify nutrient status and cultivate connection in the semiarid watershed of Utah Lake (USA). Working with community members, we collected samples from ~200 locations throughout the 7,640 km2 watershed on a single day in the spring, summer, and fall of 2018. We calculated ecohydrological metrics for nutrients, major ions, and carbon. For most solutes, concentration and leverage (influence on flux) were highest in lowland reaches draining directly to the lake, coincident with urban and agricultural sources. Solute sources were relatively persistent through time for most parameters despite substantial hydrological variation. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus species showed critical source area behavior, with 10-17% of the sites accounting for most of the flux. Unlike temperate watersheds, where spatial variability often decreases with watershed size, longitudinal variability showed an hourglass shape: high variability among headwaters, low variability in mid-order reaches, and high variability in tailwaters. This unexpected pattern was attributable to the distribution of human activity and hydrological complexity associated with return flows, losing river reaches, and diversions in the tailwaters. We conclude that participatory science has great potential to reveal ecohydrological patterns and rehabilitate individual and community relationships with local ecosystems. In this way, such projects represent an opportunity to both understand and improve water quality in diverse socioecological contexts.

Diné citizen science: Phytoremediation of uranium and arsenic in the Navajo Nation.

Mid-20th century mining in Naabeehó Bináhásdzo (Navajo Nation) polluted soil and groundwater with uranium and arsenic. The Diné and other indigenous residents of this region use groundwater for drinking, livestock, and irrigation, creating a serious environmental health risk. Currently, many individuals and communities on the Navajo Nation must purchase and transport treated water from hours away. Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) preferentially take up uranium and arsenic, potentially representing a tool to remove these contaminants through on-site, low-cost phytoremediation. This study reports the results of a collaboration among researchers, high school students, teachers, and tribal leaders to analyze water chemistry and perform a phytoremediation experiment. In 2018 and 2019, we compiled existing data from the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (NNEPA) and collected samples from surface and groundwater. We then used sunflower seedlings grown in local soil to assess whether phytoremediation could be effective at removing arsenic and uranium. For the NNEPA-sampled wells, 9.5% exceeded the maximum contaminant level for uranium (30 µg per liter) and 16% for arsenic (10 µg per liter). For the new samples, uranium was highest in surface pools, suggesting leaching from local soil. Unlike studies from humid regions, sunflowers did not decrease uranium and arsenic in soil water. Instead, there was no change in arsenic concentration and an increase in uranium concentration in both planted and control treatments, attributable to weathering of uranium-bearing minerals in the desert soil. Because much of global uranium mining occurs in arid and semiarid regions, the ineffectiveness of phytoremediation on the Navajo Nation emphasizes the importance of prevention and conventional remediation. More generally, the participatory science approach created meaningful relationships and an important collaboration between a tribal chapter and a university, providing both cultural and scientific experiential learning opportunities for Diné high school students, undergraduate researchers, and senior personnel.

How and why beekeepers participate in the INSIGNIA citizen science honey bee environmental monitoring project.

In the "contributory" citizen science project INSIGNIA, beekeepers carried out non-invasive sampling of their own honey bee colonies for an environmental investigation of pesticide residues and pollen plant origin. We surveyed several traits and attitudes of 69 of the volunteering beekeepers from ten countries. We found that their motivation was similar to that found in previous studies of environmental volunteer motivation, with helping the environment and contributing to scientific knowledge being strong motivators. Our results suggest that receiving laboratory analysis results of the samples from their colonies is the most meaningful way of appreciation for beekeepers, but is not their primary reason for participation. A citizen scientist beekeeper in this study spent on average 10.4 working hours on the project during a sampling season. Our study indicates that most of our volunteers would participate in similar future investigations, or would recommend participation to other beekeepers, underlining the potential of beekeepers as citizen scientists in honey bee research.

Citizen Science Uncovers Phytophthora ramorum as a Threat to Several Rare or Endangered California Manzanita Species.

The Sudden Oak Death (SOD) Blitzes consist of yearly surveys led by citizen scientists designed to map the distribution of Phytophthora ramorum, cause of the forest disease called SOD, across northern California. During the 2017 Santa Cruz County SOD Blitz, six rare or endangered Arctostaphylos (manzanita) species were found to be possibly symptomatic for the first time. Symptoms included branch cankers and associated canopy mortality, and affected multiple individuals per species. Isolates of P. ramorum were obtained from each of the six species and, through a 30-day-long inoculation experiment on live plants, Koch's postulates were completed for each one of them, conclusively determining that they all are hosts of this pathogen. Two additional manzanita species were later found to be apparently symptomatic in Marin County. Inoculations on detached branches using an isolate of P. ramorum obtained from one of the six rare species from Santa Cruz County were successful, suggesting that these two species may also be hosts of P. ramorum. Detached leaves of all eight species were also successfully inoculated at the University of California-Berkeley in fall 2018 and then again in spring 2019. In these cases, the same isolate was used for all inoculations, in order to obtain information on the comparative susceptibility of the eight species in question. Both branch and leaf inoculations identified significant interspecific differences in susceptibility. The production of sporangia was low on all species but it was not zero, suggesting that sporulation may cause within-plant and limited across-plant contagion, especially in rainy years.

A citizen science supported study on seasonal diversity and monoflorality of pollen collected by honey bees in Austria.

Austrian beekeepers participated in the "C.S.I. Pollen" study as citizen scientists and collected pollen from honey bee colonies in hive mounted traps every three weeks from April to September in 2014 and 2015 to uncover the seasonal availability of pollen sources for bees. 1622 pollen samples were collected and analysed using palynological light microscopy to the lowest taxonomic level possible. For 2014 and 2015 combined, 239 pollen types from more than 85 families were detected. 'Various unknown' species, Taraxacum-form and Plantago spp. were the pollen types collected by the majority of colonies (occurrence), whereas the most pollen grains collected were from Trifolium repens-form, Plantago spp. and Salix spp. (abundance). In spring, trees were found to be the most abundant pollen source, whereas in summer herbs dominated. On average, a colony collected pollen from 16.8 ± 4.7 (2014) and 15.0 ± 4.4 (2015) pollen types per sampling. Those numbers, however, vary between sampling dates and indicate a seasonal pattern. This is also supported by Simpson's diversity index, which was on median 0.668. In both years, 50.0% of analysed pollen samples were partially (>50%) and 4.2% were highly monofloral (i.e. containing >90% of one pollen type). Prevalence of monofloral pollen samples peaked at the beginning and the end of the season, when pollen diversity was the lowest.

The SMART Framework: Integration of Citizen Science, Community-Based Participatory Research, and Systems Science for Population Health Science in the Digital Age.

Citizen science enables citizens to actively contribute to all aspects of the research process, from conceptualization and data collection, to knowledge translation and evaluation. Citizen science is gradually emerging as a pertinent approach in population health research. Given that citizen science has intrinsic links with community-based research, where participatory action drives the research agenda, these two approaches could be integrated to address complex population health issues. Community-based participatory research has a strong record of application across multiple disciplines and sectors to address health inequities. Citizen science can use the structure of community-based participatory research to take local approaches of problem solving to a global scale, because citizen science emerged through individual environmental activism that is not limited by geography. This synergy has significant implications for population health research if combined with systems science, which can offer theoretical and methodological strength to citizen science and community-based participatory research. Systems science applies a holistic perspective to understand the complex mechanisms underlying causal relationships within and between systems, as it goes beyond linear relationships by utilizing big data-driven advanced computational models. However, to truly integrate citizen science, community-based participatory research, and systems science, it is time to realize the power of ubiquitous digital tools, such as smartphones, for connecting us all and providing big data. Smartphones have the potential to not only create equity by providing a voice to disenfranchised citizens but smartphone-based apps also have the reach and power to source big data to inform policies. An imminent challenge in legitimizing citizen science is minimizing bias, which can be achieved by standardizing methods and enhancing data quality-a rigorous process that requires researchers to collaborate with citizen scientists utilizing the principles of community-based participatory research action. This study advances SMART, an evidence-based framework that integrates citizen science, community-based participatory research, and systems science through ubiquitous tools by addressing core challenges such as citizen engagement, data management, and internet inequity to legitimize this integration.

Citizen science observations reveal rapid, multi-decadal ecosystem changes in eastern Long Island Sound.

Long-term environmental records are among the most valuable assets for understanding the trajectory and consequences of climate change. Here we report on a newly recovered time-series from Project Oceanology, a non-profit ocean science organization serving New England schools (USA) since 1972. As part of its educational mission, Project Oceanology has routinely and consistently recorded water temperature, pH, and oxygen as well as invertebrate and fish abundance in nearshore waters of the Thames River estuary in eastern Long Island Sound (LIS). We digitized these long-term records to test for decadal trends in abiotic and biotic variables including shifts in species abundance, richness, and diversity. Consistent with previous studies, the data revealed an above-average warming rate of eastern LIS waters over the past four decades (+0.45 °C decade-1), a non-linear acidification trend twice the global average (-0.04 pH units decade-1), and a notable decline in whole water-column dissolved oxygen concentrations (-0.29 mg L-1 decade-1). Trawl catches between 1997 and 2016 suggested a significant decrease in overall species diversity and richness, declines in cold-water adapted species such as American lobster (Homarus americanus), rock crab (Cancer irroratus), and winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), but concurrent increases in the warm-water decapod Libinia emarginata (spider crab). Our study confirmed that Long Island Sound is a rapidly changing urban estuary, while demonstrating the value of long-term observations made by citizen-scientists, educators, and other stakeholders.