Craig Packer - US grants

Cooperation is rare in animals, yet in species such as the African lion cooperation permeates all aspects of their lives. Cooperation is only expected to occur where animals associate persistently with their close kin, or where social interactions result in mutual benefit to each participant. Gaining a full understanding of the evolution of cooperation therefore requires information on the precise ways that cooperation is elicited, the distribution of cooperative acts among companions of varying degrees of kinship and the effects of such cooperation on the participants' lifetime reproductive success. Many different kinds of cooperative behavior in lions can be elicited by playing the recorded roars of intruders in their territories. In the next three years the investigators will perform playbacks both where the willingness of an individual to cooperate is visible to its companions and where its behavior would be unseen. Several other forms of cooperation will also be investigated under natural conditions. The consequences of cooperative behavior in these lions can be estimated from the 22 years of demographic data available on the study populations. These studies provide a unique opportunity to learn how animals have evolved complex forms of cooperative behavior. The long term demographic data will also be used to develop detailed models of lion population dynamics. These will be used to simulate the fates of populations of varying sizes and to calculate the potential impact of human disturbances on natural populations.

Different primate species are characterized by differing patterns of dispersal. It is generally felt that the dispersal pattern is an adaptation which may increase the selective fitness of individuals by increasingly their likelihood of mating and hence passing their genes on to subsequent generations. Both chimpanzees and baboons are present in the Gombe Forest of Tanzania and each demonstrates a different dispersal pattern. Among chimpanzees, about half of the females leave their natal group permanently and half leave temporarily. Among the baboons, it is the males who emigrate but the age of first dispersal varies from 3 to 9 years. Additionally, some female baboons leave their natal range at the time when groups divide. In order to attempt to understand the costs and benefits of the different patterns, the PIs will cooperate with Jane Goodall in the use of her detailed field notes; notes which extend back for as much as 20 years. In addition, they will extend the studies of both species at Gombe for the next three years by direct observation. In cooperation with Tanzanian scientists, they will also test the relationship of the richness of the habitat to the dispersal patterns by initiating new studies on the plant species distributions within the ranges of each species.

This is a proposal to purchase equipment for animal behavior studies. The equipment to be obtained includes video cameras, monitors, video tracking systems, computers and additional image processing and storage devices. The equipment will allow the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior to pursue new controlled laboratory studies that had not been possible before. Research will focus on circadian rhythms, cooperative behavior, mate choice, and movement patterns. The instrumentation will enable automated monitoring of physiology, activity and coloration. Image grabbers will also be used to catalogue representative examples of behavior that can then be used to train students in classifying behavior and to ensure interobserver reliability. The University of Minnesota sponsors two programs that encourage undergraduate research: the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and a research oriented honors.

9407880 Packer Over the next decade, the principal investigators will extend the long-term ecological, demographic and genealogical records on lions in the Serengeti National park and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. These populations are already among the best-studied vertebrates in the world, but lions have long life expectancies and lion population size responds slowly to ecological perturbation. Extensionof these records will have three important consequences. First, the relationship between small-scale environmental heterogeneity and local carrying capacity will be determined by collecting more complete and extensive data on survival, reproduction, and the physical growth rates of immatures. Knowledge of this relationship will make it possible to answer a wide variety of research questions, including (a) the role of territoriality in lion population regulation, (b) the effects of territoriality, familiarity and kinship on female dispersal patterns, (c) the extent to which territorial neighbors collude to pre-empt settlement by potential newcomers, and (d) the impact of post-reproductive females on the reproductive rates of their younger companions. Second, extending the long-term lion study will permit the ongoing monitoring of these populations in the face of impending ecological change. By recording population changes and patterns of physical growth, it will be possible to measure the impact of the enormous increase in human population around the Serengeti. Maintenance of the data in the Ngorongoro Crater will further elucidate the consequences of chronic inbreeding in a small population. Continued measurement of both populations will be invaluable in monitoring the effects of global climate change. Third, by maintaining the long-term records, the PI's and their collaborators will be able to incorporate highly detailed background data into cross-sectional studies that will receive funding from other sources. At the minimum, these surveys will include studies of host-parasite coe volution, endocrinology, and behavior. Not only will the lion project carry out basic research, but it will also have a practical application. The long-term lion data will be incorporated into a new GIS project in the Serengeti along with all available data collected by the Serengeti Ecological Monitoring Program.

9319909 Anne Pusey In the past 30 years, Jane Goodall revolutionized our understanding of chimpanzee behavior, and in the process gave us an extraordinary perspective on ourselves and our behavioral origins. Chimpanzees are fascinating in their own right. They are one of the few mammalian species to show female dispersal and male-male cooperation, and this continuing study will provide new insights into the causes and consequences of this unusual social organization. Though less prominent than the chimp study, the Gombe baboon study is the longest and most extensive field study of any African monkey. This current research effort, in coordination with Goodall and Tanzanian collaborators, will involve three interconnecting projects. First, long-term demographic and behavioral data on chimpanzees and olive baboons will be analyzed and new data will be collected. This will include Goodall's records from the past three decades. The emphasis will be an examination of the costs and benefits of female dispersion and male sociality. In contrast, olive baboons show the social organization typical of old world monkeys, with home ranges maintained largely by the females and males moving between troops. This research effort will investigate group-level factors influencing female reproductive success, and the causes of individual variability in male reproductive success, social relationships and paternal care. The large sample sizes allow sophisticated statistical analysis of demography and social behavior. The second project involves a highly detailed survey of the diversity and distribution of vegetation in the entire park -- an area of unusual plant diversity. The vegetation studies will clarify the ecological basis of chimpanzee social organization, the importance of inter-troop competition in baboons, and will also contribute to the inventory of biodiversity in Tanzania. The third project will use DNA extracted from feces of both species to assess paternity, measure genetic relatedness and levels of inbreeding. By perfecting the extraction of nuclear DNA from feces and developing baboon-specific primers, the team will facilitate paternity studies in other primate field studies.

9507423 This project will use genetic analysis to determine the patterns of paternity and male reproductive success in the chimpanzees and baboons of Gombe National Park, Tanzania. These populations have been studied under the direction of Dr. Jane Goodall for 35 and 28 years, respectively. In both species, females mate with many males, and males show a variety of mating strategies including mating at high frequencies, aggressive competition for access to females, possessive behavior, the formation of consortships, and the cultivation of special relationships with females. However, little is known of the relative effectiveness of these strategies in achieving paternity because genetic analysis has not been possible. This project will use a non-invasive procedure, the extraction of DNA from feces, to obtain genetic material for analysis. Samples from 250 baboons in five troops, and 20 chimpanzees in one community, have already been collected, and techniques for DNA extraction have been perfected. Samples will be collected from additional infants and unsampled potential parents in six baboon troops and two chimpanzee communities to yield total sample sizes of 150 infant baboons and 20 infant chimpanzees. Approximately 8 hypervariable regions of the nuclear DNA will be amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and paternity will be determined by comparing the genotypes of infants, their mothers, and potential fathers. In combination with the detailed behavioral records, knowledge of paternity will allow assessment of the effectiveness of different mating strategies. The study will provide new information about patterns mf relatedness within groups and will provide new insights into the evolution of competitive behavior and affiliative relationships in these species.

9709212 Packer This project will analyze the extent to which male and female lions invest in the survival of offspring. Under most conditions, male lions compete for food with the rest of their pride, but resident males provide important defense against extra- group males. Pridemates forage apart and males spend considerable effort trying to relocate the females and young. Females should be most likely to reveal their whereabouts to resident males when their cubs are in greatest need of protection from infanticidal strangers but least helpful when feeding competition would be most intense. Females are also expected to weigh the relative reproductive value of successive broods according to the vulnerability of their younger cubs, being more likely to resume exclusive investment in their older brood when the younger brood is virtually doomed. Because male parental investment is so important to cub survival, this research is directed at examining factors related to male-female cooperation and mating behaviors, and includes a series of mate-choice and intruder- simulation experiments. Females are predicted to prefer to mate with males with larger or darker manes, whereas males should preferentially attack strangers with shorter or lighter manes. The study will investigate whether the mane is a condition-dependent trait, and will examine a variety of nutritional and hormonal factors that are likely to contribute to variability in mane size and color. Studies will be conducted in the field at the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research site in the Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Results of this research will allow a better understanding of the evolutionary factors underlying the complex social behavior of lions.

Animal Behavior Program
Nontechnical Abstract


Proposal #: 9817588
PI: Pusey, Anne
Title: Determinants of male dominance and reproductive success in wild primates



Male chimpanzees and baboons compete for dominance rank and for access to receptive females. The ultimate goal of the project is to determine how male reproductive success is influenced by such physical traits as body size, canine length and morphological symmetry and by such behavioral strategies as social dominance, alliance formation, paternal care and the cultivation of long-term relationships with females. Dr. Pusey's research will be carried out on the chimpanzees and baboons of Gombe National Park on populations that have been studied for nearly 40 years. This is an extraordinary database upon which to anchor interpretations of the results from this project. The immediate goal is to perfect techniques for paternity exclusions by extracting DNA from fecal samples and hair. Samples will be collected as part of the long-term studies at Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Various extraction techniques will be tested, and human MapPairTM primers will be screened to identify genetic markers in chimpanzees and baboons that exhibit necessary levels of heterozygosity yet whose alleles are sufficiently distinguishable from humans to minimize problems associated with contamination.

Measuring the relationship between physical prowess, symmetry, dominance rank, and reproductive success will increase understanding of the evolution of sexual dimorphism and the importance of symmetry in indicating "quality." Measuring the effects of behavioral strategies will reveal the extent to which male mating competition has driven the evolution of complex social behavior. Because these genetic techniques are non-invasive, the project will greatly enhance the ability to monitor levels of inbreeding in endangered populations.

Over the next five years, this ongoing study of Serengeti lion populations will monitor the ranging patterns and demographic performance of lions in the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. By continuing this long-term monitoring, the LTREB project will provide essential data on the effectiveness of a large-scale vaccination program that has been designed to protect wild carnivores from canine distemper virus (CDV) and canine parvovirus. The project will also clarify the ecological factors that influence the virulence and severity of CDV should another outbreak take place. The data will be used to test a series of models that reconstruct the Serengeti ecosystem. The lion project provides the most detailed data on any single species in the Serengeti, and it is particularly valuable in terms of the lions' response to ecological perturbations such as the predicted increase in year-to-year variability in rainfall. The project will also conduct a number of detailed studies to clarify the lions' ecology. First, relationships between lions and hyenas will be studied in detail to determine how these two species co-exist despite their similar ecological requirements. Second, new data will be collected on the lions' prey preferences as a function of prey density. Third, a simple experiment in large-scale habitat modification (through a series of controlled grassfires) will be undertaken to alter the carrying capacity of the Serengeti plains. Fourth, a genetic translocation experiment will be attempted so as to alleviate the degree of close inbreeding in the small, isolated Ngorongoro lion population. The project has several broader impacts. First, multi-host pathogens are the most serious public health problem since they can infect humans. If an effective vaccination program in domestic dogs can prevent the spread of disease in the wild carnivores of the Serengeti, this will provide a model for similar programs around the world. More fundamental, perhaps, the Serengeti lion study provides a high-profile example of the impacts of
ecological change, whether in terms of infectious disease or from extreme weather
conditions.

Of the emerging infectious diseases, zoonotic and generalist viral pathogens pose a particular threat to public health and biodiversity. The effective control of these diseases requires both the identification of reservoires of infection and an understanding of viral transmission dynamics within complex host assemblages. Yet for most emerging infectious diseases, reservoirs remain to be identified and little is known about mechanisms by which infections are maintained. This study will propose a theoretical and practical framework for recognizing reservoirs in the field, which will be applied to identify reservoirs of viral infections in the Serengeti, Tanzania. The recent emergence of viral diseases in this area provides the opportunity for a comparative study of zoonotic and generalist pathogens within a diverse, well-studied and important ecosystem. Furthermore, the area is surrounded by rapidly expanding human and domestic animal populations which have profound impacts on the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. This study will investigate the transmission dynamics of three viral pathogens, rabies, cane distemper virus (CDV), and canine parvovirus (CPV), identifying reservoirs of infection through a combination of approaches that include intervention trials, genetic analyses and disease surveillance. Empirical data on the spatial distribution of hosts and contact rated will be integrated into mathematical models of transmission between and within species. These models will be used to (a) investigate mechanisms by which viral infections are maintained in multi-population systems; (b) anticipate future requirements for disease management in relation to changes in human activity and climate patterns; (c) design cost-effective programs for the control of disease in human and animal populations.

This Communicating Research to Public Audiences project is derived from work funded by research grant DEB-9903416 entitled "LTREB: Long Term Studies of African Lions." In partnership with the Bell Museum of Natural History, Craig Packer at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities will develop a 500 sq ft traveling exhibition and associated website on the factors that contribute to the successful survival and reproduction of individual lions.

Intellectual Merit: This exhibit builds on public interest in lions and the intriguing question of why males have manes to educate visitors about the process of scientific research. Its content is based on seven years of observations and experiments by a leading researcher on the behavioral ecology of lions. The exhibit will include a life-size "model" lion (actually a plush toy made to exact specifications) that was used in the field to test responses by real lions.

Broader Impact: In addition to being displayed by the Bell Museum, "The Lion's Mane" exhibit will travel to zoos with lion exhibits and to museums with lion dioramas. By highlighting a female researcher, the exhibit provides an entry point and a role model for girls. This exhibit will benefit from and build upon extensive national publicity received by the Lion Research Project and its lionresearch.org website.

The Greater Serengeti Ecosystem (hereafter "the Serengeti") is a complex coupled human and natural system consisting of a network of diverse and intense trophic interactions played out over a heterogeneous landscape. Livestock and a species-rich assemblage of large mammalian herbivores, the most abundant of which migrate over a 12,000 square-km area each year, consume a high fraction of primary plant production. These herbivores sustain human populations and a rich assemblage of avian and mammalian carnivores. Moreover, humans, wild animals, and livestock are all vulnerable to a wide variety of infectious diseases. Broad-scale heterogeneity in land use is superimposed on this dynamic landscape. The Serengeti National Park is a classic example of a protected area and ecotourism destination, while the adjacent Ngorongoro Conservation Area permits Maasai pastoralism, game reserves, (Maswa and Ikorongo) permit-controlled off-take of trophy species, and game-controlled areas (Grumeti) that permit all human activity except agriculture. The linkages between human and natural components of the Serengeti are so pervasive that human decision making may be the critical process governing the fate of the entire ecosystem. Pressure is mounting as human and animal populations converge on the western border of Serengeti National Park (SNP) and Mara Reserve. To study the coupling of natural ecosystem functioning and human decision making in the greater Serengeti, this interdisciplinary research project will use four modeling approaches: (1) Process-rich, spatially explicit ecosystem simulation models will be developed to predict changes in plant and animal communities as well as human use of landscapes at different scales. (2) Agent-based models will incorporate individual decision-making rules in a spatially explicit environment. (3) Analytical models of community modules will explore interactions among five to ten key species. (4) Macro-ecological models will describe system patterns and processes as functions of major resource inputs, such as rainfall and soil nutrients. These models will explore emergent dynamics of the Serengeti at various organizational scales. A large amount of Serengeti field data will be analyzed to parameterize the models and to assess their ability to explain past dynamics and current ecosystem trends. In addition, crucial new data on human activities and choices will be collected to understand the coupling of system dynamics between natural and human-dominated components. This blend of different modeling approaches and data syntheses will permit a unique integration of ecological and social sciences. The concept of ecosystem resilience/resistance will be directly related to the vulnerability of human societies.

The theory of complex systems proposes that emergent properties can arise from relatively simple underlying mechanisms propagated in space and time. The vulnerability of humans and sustainability of biodiversity in the Serengeti may be driven by a few critical constraints that operate independently of individual components. These constraints arise from fundamental laws/principles in psychology, biology, chemistry, and physics that constrain key biological processes and human decisions. Alternatively, complex systems may be sensitive to small differences in initial conditions and show a tendency to switch between alternative states. This sensitivity suggests that biodiversity and human welfare may be highly contingent on details such as individual behavior, the identity of the species participating, and the precise spatial arrangement of interactions among humans, plants, animals, and diseases. The Serengeti provides a unique opportunity to test this hypothesis, because its component parts are so conspicuous and its dynamical patterns have been measured for 40 years. Finally, emergent system properties may be contingent on just a few critical components, which would imply that the Serengeti can be understood from networks of interaction among a few key species of plants/animals and humans. In addition to providing fundamental new knowledge, the project will provide insights and information of immediate value of managers and decision makers in the study region and many other locales. It also will provide valuable research and training opportunities for students and post-doctoral scholars, and it will facilitate international collaborations between U.S. and African scientists. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2003 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.

Lions are the only cat species dependent upon cooperative social relationships for their survival. Explaining cooperation in lions lies in understanding the link between the ecological characteristics of their habitat and the survival value of group-living. GIS analysis of 38 years of data on lions in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, reveals that high value lion habitat (defined by high cub survival) is near a river, near a kopje (small rocky hill), and in woodland areas. This information will be used to test the hypothesis that lions live in groups in order to gain a competitive edge in territorial defense, thereby maintaining access to high quality habitat. The funds requested in this proposal will support research to verify these Serengeti-based results in other locations, providing for a level of external validity uncommon to most dissertation projects.

Conservation of threatened populations depends upon understanding how a species utilizes the resources (space, food, water and mates) in its habitat. This, in turn, helps to predict how populations will respond to ever changing and fragmented landscapes. This research will provide an example for understanding the evolution of a group-territorial species and it also will establish new methods for determining how populations are tied to the landscape. These tools have general applicability to effective conservation of other wildlife species.

Diseases that infect multiple species threaten the health of humans, domestic animals, and wildlife. This study addresses the disease dynamics of two multi-species diseases in the Serengeti ecosystem: canine distemper virus (which killed over a thousand lions in 1994) and rabies (which kills humans as well as all other mammals). The objective of this thesis is to use innovative models parameterized with field data on intraspecific and interspecific contact rates to understand how canine distemper virus and rabies persist in the Serengeti ecosystem and to design appropriate control measures. Mathematical models allow for virtual experiments that would otherwise be unethical or infeasible in the real world.

This research will be the first ecological study of disease dynamics in wild carnivores to combine modeling with detailed observations in a multi-host ecosystem. The theoretical models developed here will not only contribute to a basic understanding of disease dynamics but also provide practical recommendations for carnivore conservation and human health in rural Africa. Theoretical approaches to real-life conservation actions are urgently needed to improve future disease control programs in an era of frequent emerging diseases.

In the next 10 yrs, the Serengeti lion project will conduct comprehensive research to construct and test detailed models of population and community ecology. First, the project will investigate lion population dynamics in stochastic environments, constructing generalized additive and generalized linear models with population-level variables (overall food availability, climate and population density), pride-level variables (local food availability, pride size and structure) and individual variables (age and sex). Second, the project will investigate the role of spatial heterogeneity in stabilizing the coexistence of competing carnivore species. Cheetahs, lions and hyenas may show divergent niche strategies that create a reticulated pattern of occupancy within an overall pattern of coexistence. Third, the project will likely measure the impact of a large-scale loss in prey availability on lion population dynamics and sociality, owing to the impending collapse of the wildebeest migration. While group living is predicted to be common across a wide range of resource distributions at high population densities, grouping should be restricted to a few localized areas at low densities. Fourth, the project will measure cycle length of four viral diseases to test predictions of well parameterized multi-host models.

Broader Impacts: Data from this study will be used by wildlife managers throughout the world, providing important insights for predicting the consequences of habitat change and fragmentation, identifying the landscape features necessary for species co-existence and measuring the effectiveness of disease control programs. Based on the investigator's past experience, continuation of this long-term program will result in numerous publications, training of American and Tanzanian graduate students in ecology and epidemiology, and widespread reporting in the popular press.

This project will conduct comprehensive research to construct and test detailed models of population and community ecology, with a focus on African lion populations. First, the project will investigate lion population dynamics at the level of individual social groups as well as larger-scale sub-populations, constructing statistical models with population-level, group-level, and individual variables to determine the relative impacts of short-term variability in demographic performance and environmental conditions on population growth and stability. Comprehensive data on day-to-day variation in prey availability within the ranges of 24 different lion groups will be measured and used to link the shifting mosaic of migratory herbivores and territorial behavior of the lions in a spatial food-web model across the landscape. Second, the project will investigate the role of spatial heterogeneity in stabilizing the coexistence of competing carnivore species. Cheetahs, leopards, lions and hyenas may show divergent niche strategies that create a reticulated pattern of occupancy within an overall pattern of coexistence. Third, the project will measure cycle-length of four viral diseases in the lions to test predictions of multi-host disease transmission models.

The project will continue to train Tanzanian researchers, collaborate with Tanzanian scientists and provide research opportunities for American graduate students and undergraduates, including individuals from under-represented minorities. Results from the study will help wildlife managers to predict consequences of habitat change and fragmentation, to identify the landscape features necessary for species co-existence, and to measure the effectiveness of disease control programs.

This award will support a synthesis of thirty-six years of research on African lions, focusing on how body size and habitat have molded the ecology and evolution of this unusually cooperative mammalian species. Large body size allows lions to dominate competing, carnivore species and to monopolize the best locations for ambushing prey. The distribution of these valuable hunting sites is limited to a few key areas in savanna landscapes, resulting in intense competition between neighbors, and ultimately in the evolution of cooperative behavior and group living. This synthesis will address whether lions' cooperative behavior can most profitably be understood as the product of the differential survival and reproduction of individuals or of entire social groups. The work will also assess the impact of lions on the population sizes of competing carnivore species, on the population sizes of the lions' preferred prey, and on the savanna vegetation consumed by these herbivores.

This project will produce a book to be published by the University of Chicago Press and written in a manner accessible for the general public. The book will include chapters that address how lion behavior and ecology increases the risk of their becoming cattle killers and man-eaters, and how to use this knowledge to design appropriate strategies for mitigating human-lion conflicts. The synthesis of information on this topic will be invaluable in designing effective conservation strategies for this iconic species.

This project explores the population dynamics of large African predators, asking how spotted hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs are able to live with lions, given that lions frequently harass and kill these smaller predators. Investigators will integrate data from surveys of lions with data from camera traps to determine how hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs distribute themselves across the landscape with respect to lions, and how differences in habitat use enable these species to coexist with and without lions. Understanding how predators coexist is important for understanding how large ecosystems function. Recent research has emphasized the profound effects that top predators can have on ecosystems; disrupting predator populations can destabilize natural systems in unexpected ways. The ability to predict how and why destabilization occurs is a necessary first step to preventing the ecological collapse of ecosystems with many types of predators. This project will engage the public through a citizen science platform (www.SnapshotSerengeti.org) in which members of the public help identify wild animals in photographs taken by camera traps. As anthropogenic change drives the continued decline of large predators around the world, research on ecosystem stability becomes increasingly relevant, as does public engagement in research.

More specifically, this study will test predictions from an ongoing predator study in the Serengeti by comparing distributions and population sizes of spotted hyenas, leopards, and cheetahs across two South African reserves with and without lions. For example, without lions, leopard numbers may higher or hyenas may occupy prime riverine habitats. This type of response is expected because overlap between mammalian predators is typically minimal; instead, suppression appears to be mediated primarily through direct aggression and a large-scale avoidance response that displaces subordinate species from large portions of the landscape. In traditional predator-prey systems, this non-consumptive effect (NCE) of predation risk creates a "landscape of fear" that can be more important for predator-prey dynamics than actual predation. It can, for example, be the driving force behind trophic cascades. However, the role of NCEs in driving population dynamics has been almost exclusively investigated in small scale predator-prey systems. This project investigates the role of NCEs in driving apex-mesopredator coexistence in a guild of large African carnivores. The research has two aims: (1) to compare effects of large-scale displacement in driving lion-mesopredator coexistence, and (2) to evaluate the role of landscape structure and behavioral avoidance at multiple spatial and temporal scales in mediating lion-mesopredator coexistence. It is predicted that complex landscapes will facilitate fine-scale partitioning and thus coexistence by minimizing large-scale displacement.

A team of experts from five institutions (University of Minnesota, Adler Planetarium, University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, and UC San Diego) links field-based and online analysis capabilities to support citizen science, focusing on three research areas (cell biology, ecology, and astronomy). The project builds on Zooniverse and CitSci.org, leverages the NSF Science Gateways Community Institute, and enhances the quality of citizen science and the experience of its participants.

This project creates an integrated Citizen Science Cyberinfrastructure (CSCI) framework that expands the capacity of research communities across several disciplines to use citizen science as a suitable and sustainable research methodology. CSCI produces three improvements to the infrastructure for citizen science already provided by Zooniverse and CitSci.org:
- Combining Modes - connecting the process of data collection and analysis;
- Smart Assignment - improving the assignment of tasks during analysis; and
- New Data Models - exploring the Data-as-Subject model. By treating time series data as data, this model removes the need to create images for classification and facilitates more complex workflows. These improvements are motivated and investigated through three distinct scientific cases:
- Biomedicine (3D Morphology of Cell Nucleus). Currently, Zooniverse 'Etch-a-Cell' volunteers provide annotations of cellular components in images from high-resolution microscopy, where a single cell provides a stack containing thousands of sliced images. The Smart Task Assignment capability incorporates this information, so volunteers are not shown each image in a stack where machines or other volunteers have already evaluated some subset of data.
- Ecology (Identifying Individual Animals). When monitoring wide-ranging wildlife populations, identification of individual animals is needed for robust estimates of population sizes and trends. This use case combines field collection and data analysis with deep learning to improve results.
- Astronomy (Characterizing Lightcurves). Astronomical time series data reveal a variety of behaviors, such as stellar flares or planetary transits. The existing Zooniverse data model requires classification of individual images before aggregation of results and transformation back to refer to the original data. By using the Data-as-Subject model and the Smart Task Assignment capability, volunteers will be able to scan through the entire time series in a machine-aided manner to determine specific light curve characteristics.

The team explores the use of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to determine automated learning architectures best suited to the projects. Of particular interest is how the degree to which neighboring subjects are coupled affects performance. The integration of existing tools, which is based on application programming interfaces (APIs), also facilitates further tool integration. The effort creates a citizen science framework that directly advances knowledge for three science use cases in biomedicine, ecology, and astronomy, and combines field-collected data with data analysis. This has the ability to solve key problems in the individual applications, as well as benefiting the research of the dozens of projects on the Zooniverse platform. It provides benefits to researchers using citizen scientists, and to the nearly 1.6 million citizen scientists themselves.

This award by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings, within the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.