MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK — At the pace of a wedding march, a group of six hikers saunters down the Sunrise Rim Trail on a recent Wednesday morning. Over their left shoulders, Mount Rainier’s Emmons Glacier wilts against a sapphire backdrop.
Suddenly, Tucker Grigsby, an intern with the National Park Service, lurches forward and bounds down the trail. With a snap of the wrist worthy of Roger Federer, he flicks a net through the air and captures his floating prize — a magnificent orange and black banded butterfly.
As soon as the specimen is secure, the hikers crowd around Grigsby, who holds up a ventilated bug jar.
“Can you guys tell me which one this is?” Grigsby says. Each takes a turn handling the jar.
The group studies the markings on the butterfly and determines it to be an Edith’s Checkerspot — one of five species captured that day.
No, these hikers are not collectors (no pins needed; it’s catch and release). Most of them are not scientists.
They’re volunteers with the Cascades Butterfly Project, learning to gather data that will help measure the impact of climate change on these important pollinators and Mount Rainier National Park itself.
Today, they’re learning to walk a “transect” of about a half-mile and capture any butterflies that flutter into an imaginary 16-foot box in front of them. They also catalog plant varieties.
Volunteers will gather data each week this summer at 10 sites in the Cascades.
Scientists can probe the data for patterns and compare plants’ growth with the emergence of the fluttering pollinators, said Regina Rochefort, science adviser at North Cascades National Park. The big question: As the climate changes, “Are plants responding at the same rate as the butterflies?”
The question mirrors what scientists worldwide are asking of any number of environmental features: How will nature adapt to a world growing warmer?
To collect the expansive data sets needed to explore climate change’s thorny questions, scientists are increasingly turning to unpaid volunteers. Washington state — with a bevy of hikers, climbers and skiers exploring the natural world — makes for fertile recruiting ground.
Ancient practice
Citizen science is both centuries old and a movement brand-new.
Many point to 1900 as citizen science’s birth. At the time, sportsmen commonly hunted nongame birds on Christmas Day. Concerned about conservation, New Jersey ornithologist Frank Chapman proposed counting birds instead of shooting them and the Christmas Bird Count was born. Now, data from 116 years of the Audubon Society-sponsored activity is available on the society’s website.
But Julia Parrish, a University of Washington biology professor, said the concept of citizen science is as old as humanity.
“Every culture … pays attention to natural phenomena, and we refer to that as an almanac,” said Parrish. “I need to know when the birds are going to be here. I need to know when the salmon are returning … that kept people alive and that is the real start of citizen science.”
Once a target of skepticism among researchers, citizen science is now so popular it has its own association, a conference dedicated to its development and a number of websites that host data or match people with projects.
The Oxford English Dictionary in 2014 added “citizen science” to its volumes, defining the practice as “scientific work undertaken by members of the general public, often in collaboration with or under the direction of professional scientists and scientific institutions.”
“There was some concern that citizen science wouldn’t be good enough to publish in journals, but that has been dispelled,” said Martin Storksdieck, an Oregon State University professor studying the topic, who noted that passionate volunteers are no less reliable than undergraduates making minimum wage.
Popularity has grown “in terms of the number of projects out there, the diversity of projects out there, the disciplines, and the people engaging with it,” he said.
Many disciplines are leaning on volunteers. Some crowdsource analysis in cases where human brains still exceed computer algorithms. University of Washington researchers, for example, developed a puzzle game called Foldit, in which people manipulate, or “fold” digital protein structures. The patterns people find can sometimes be applied to fight deadly diseases.
Other projects focus on a specific problem, like testing the water quality of a local stream.
Climate study is a natural fit for citizen science, Storksdieck said.
“Where someone has to observe something … you need people on the ground,” he said. “Citizen science is ideal for that.”
As scientists learn to trust participants in collecting data, the hope is that participants will gain trust in science.
“We’re not trying to trick them into learning science,” said Darlene Cavalier, who founded SciStarter, a citizen science project database. “They’re so valuable for what they’re going to be able to contribute to scientific research. … It’s a great additional outcome.”
The Mountaineers, a climbing club based in Seattle, has been training dozens of its members on how to identify pika, rabbitlike mammals with Mickey Mouse ears that live in alpine environments.
“We’re already up there,” said Becca Polglase, education manager for The Mountaineers. “Everyone already looks for pika.”
