DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13986540
title: Data from: The extent of amphibian, fish and water plant translocations  by garden pond owners

description: To determine how frequently garden pond owners translocate plants, amphibians or fish between their ponds and natural areas, and over what distances, we set out a survey. The 2023 survey was designed in LimeSurvey and consisted of three components: (A) information about ownership of garden ponds, terrariums, and aquariums, (B) information about plants and animals and (C) sociodemographic information. Component A was used to determine whether respondents owned a garden pond, terrarium or aquarium. If so, the respondents were asked at what postal code their pond, terrarium or aquarium was located. This was necessary because the postal codes were used to determine the approximate location of the respondents’ home and calculate translocation distances. Respondents were able to enter a different postal code for each confinement type. In case respondents moved and had, for example, a garden pond on both addresses, they were asked to pick the postal code of the address where they had lived the longest or the one they could tell the most about. The introductory text of the questionnaire was phrased neutrally and did not mention exotic species, diseases or other issues. We did so to reduce the risk of social-desirability bias.

The respondents who indicated that they had a garden pond, a terrarium or an aquarium were led through a series of questions about fish, amphibians and water plants in compartment B of the survey. If a respondent indicated that a species group was present in their pond, terrarium, or aquarium, they were asked how they acquired that species and additionally, if they had ever removed any species from its confinement. Multiple answers were possible for both obtainment and removal. If no appropriate answer was on the list, respondents could describe an additional answer. In case the options “collected/caught in nature” and/or “released/dumped in nature” were picked, the respondents were asked if they could pinpoint the location(s) on a map (that worked with OpenStreetMap). They could enter up to ten locations. For each location, they were asked what species they collected or released. Participants who translocated species but could not pinpoint any locations were asked to list all species at once. Species were only taken into account if it was clear what type of animal or plant was described. Full species names were not a necessity, but vague descriptions such as “oxygen plant” were counted as “unknown”.

Participants who translocated animals or plants were asked how many times they had done so. Sufficient instructions were supplied to explain that, for this question, it did not matter where and how many individuals were caught or released each time. The respondents were also asked to formulate the most important reason for collecting or releasing plants and animals. In case respondents indicated that they transferred species from inside (terrarium or aquarium) to outside (pond) or vice versa when asked about the acquirement and removal of species, they were asked to list the species they had moved. These questions could be answered twice, once for the pond and once for the aquarium or terrarium regarding fish and amphibians. In such cases, information about what species were moved was combined. Terrarium or aquarium owners were not specifically asked about translocating plants to, and especially from, aquariums or terrariums because our main focus was on garden ponds and to prevent the survey from becoming too long, yet participants were able to note down which plants they moved from their pond to their aquarium or terrarium and vice versa as part of the questions concerning garden ponds. No questions were asked about hypothetical scenarios as we were only interested in what translocations had already happened and why, and not in uncertain future behavior of garden pond owners.

Here we archive an anonymized version of the resulting datasets. Postal codes, longitudinal and latitudinal data, and additional comments provided by the respondents at the end of the survey were removed to anonymize the dataset. Those questions remain, but the cells are empty.

We have provided a csv file with a side-by-side translation of the survey questions and the answers to multiple choice questions in the dataset. Please see ESM_2 for the original survey and ESM_3 of Prins et al. (provisionally accepted) for a translated version including conditional rules.

Respondents could formulate their own answer when they picked other as an answer to the multiple choice questions about how they acquired plants or animals and the questions about what they did with plants and animals when removed from their enclosures. We categorized these additional answer by adding an extra column named Andere categorieën (Other categories). In here, we wrote down to what category the additional answers belonged. That could be the extra category Spontaan (Spontaneous) that we added for the questions about how plants and animals were acquired, Overig (Other) or one of the three overarching categories: Gekocht (Bought), Gehad (Received as gift), and weggegeven (Given away). Additional answers that only added explanation to one of the picked answer options, were not sorted into new or overarching categories.

The answers to the motivation questions were categorized as well. We did this by adding an extra column named Categorie (Category) and noting down to what category (or categories) the answers belonged. We created seven motivation categories for the collection of plants and animals and three for their removal. See the table below for a translation of each category. 

 






Motivations for collecting water plants and animals form nature





Categorie



Category





Leven



Ecosystem functioning





Esthetiek



Aesthetic preferences





Kosten



Expenses and availability





Dierenleed



Animal suffering





Soortbescherming



Species preservation





Educatie



Education





Overig



Other





Motivations for releasing water plants and animals in nature after removing them from a garden pond





Categorie



Category





Overlast



Overcrowding and hinder





Verblijf



Enclosure





Overig



Other





 

This archive contains 3 files:

Side_by_side_translation.csv provides English translations of all questions in our Dutch questionnaire in 2023.

results-survey-anonymized.csv contains the anonymized answers by the respondents in 2023. Response IDs have been shuffled and no longer indicate the chronological order of the responses.

2023_translocations_with_distance_anonymized.csv contains the calculated distances between the postal code of the garden pond and natural area where species were collected or released. The responseIDs match with those in the previous file.