Three Decades of Community Science Wildlife Monitoring: Lessons from the City of Ann Arbor's Bird, Butterfly, Reptile, and Amphibian Data

Abstract

Urban and peri-urban natural areas can serve as critical refugia for biodiversity and provide key ecosystem services, despite pressures from habitat fragmentation, invasive species, and climate change. Understanding which species inhabit these spaces over time is crucial, as this information both inspires conservation efforts and informs effective management strategies. However, collecting the necessary data to guide conservation efforts requires robust, ongoing monitoring. Community science, in which volunteers participate in data collection, addresses this need by enabling widespread, cost-effective data collection across large temporal and spatial scales. Beyond the value of the data itself, community science fosters ecological stewardship by connecting local communities with their natural areas, which increases participation in management activities and improves habitat quality. In southeastern Michigan, the City of Ann Arbor Parks & Recreation Department's Natural Area Preservation (NAP) division has collected nearly 30 years worth of ecological data in city parks and natural areas through community science wildlife surveys. These programs target three taxa—birds, butterflies, and herpetofauna (herps; referring to amphibians and reptiles)—and have amassed thousands of observations. Having data over so many years and across many different parks provides a rare opportunity to get a picture of which species are supported over time and how that has changed, and how that relates to site features and management efforts. However, in-depth analysis of large and complex datasets requires time and effort. Recognizing both the value of their datasets and the need for a more comprehensive analysis of outcomes to date, the City initiated a collaboration with our team of master’s students from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability in January 2024. 2 Our collaboration produced a suite of deliverables tailored to three key audiences: the City of Ann Arbor, local community volunteers, and urban ecology researchers. These include an internal report and data repository with R code to support NAP’s adaptive management and future analyses, an ArcGIS StoryMap for public engagement, a peer-reviewed paper to inform standardization methods for community science data use, and two professional conference presentations, the Natural Areas Association Conference 2024 and The Stewardship Network Conference 2025.