DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cp31tg6
title: Data from: Continent‐scale phenotype mapping using citizen scientists’ photographs

description: Field investigations of phenotypic variation in free‐living organisms are
 often limited in scope owing to time and funding constraints. By
 collaborating with online communities of amateur naturalists,
 investigators can greatly increase the amount and diversity of phenotypic
 data in their analyses while simultaneously engaging with a public
 audience. Here, we present a method for quantifying phenotypes of
 individual organisms in citizen scientists’ photographs. We then show that
 our protocol for measuring wing phenotypes from photographs yields
 accurate measurements in two species of Calopterygid damselflies. Next, we
 show that, while most observations of our target species were made by
 members of the large and established community of amateur naturalists at
 iNaturalist.org, our efforts to increase recruitment through various
 outreach initiatives were successful. Finally, we present results from two
 case studies: (1) an analysis of wing pigmentation in male smoky rubyspots
 (Hetaerina titia) showing previously undocumented geographical variation
 in a seasonal polyphenism, and (2) an analysis of variation in the
 relative size of the wing spots of male banded demoiselles (Calopteryx
 splendens) in Great Britain questioning previously documented evidence for
 character displacement. Our results demonstrate that our protocol can be
 used to create high quality phenotypic datasets using citizen scientists’
 photographs, and, when combined with metadata (e.g., date and location),
 can greatly broaden the scope of studies of geographical and temporal
 variation in phenotypes. Our analyses of the recruitment and engagement
 process also demonstrate that collaborating with an online community of
 amateur naturalists can be a powerful way to conduct hypothesis‐driven
 research aiming to elucidate the processes that impact trait evolution at
 landscape scales.
description: Dataset1Dataset1 Contains data for comparing measurements made from perched individuals to those made from photographs taken under standardised conditions. perched.hw = the total proportion of the isolated hindwing that is visible in perched photos perched.tw = the total proportion of the surface of wings that is visible in perched photos standard.hw = the total proportion of the hindwing surface that is pigmented from standardised photos standard.tw = the total proportion of the surface of wings that is pigmented from standardised photosDataset2aContains data for observation accrual rate analyses month.ordinal.upload = unique ID for month of upload project.launch = whether observation comes from before or after the launch of the project focal.species = 1 if the focal species (e.g. demoiselles) month.upload = month of upload (raw) observation.count = number of observations submitted during the month project = iNaturalist project page corresponding to dataDataset2BContains data for observation accrual rate analyses month.ordinal.upload = unique ID for month of upload project.launch = whether observation comes from before or after the launch of the project focal.species = 1 if the focal species (e.g. demoiselles) month.upload = month of upload (raw) observation.count = number of observations submitted during the month project = iNaturalist project page corresponding to data new.recruit = 1 if individuals whose first observations in our dataset were of a focal species after the project launch dateDataset2b.csvDataset3aContains data for case study inaturalist.id = id of observation from iNaturalist.org julian.date.wyear = julian date including year julian.date = julian date used in analyses month = month latitude = decimal latitude longitude = decimal longitude site.id = unique ID for site region = region assigned for analyses (for smoky rubyspot analyses, see main text) scientific_name = scientific name perched.tw = the total proportion of the surface of wings that is visible in perched photos perched.hw = the total proportion of the isolated hindwing that is visible in perched photos perched.hw_interpolated = perched.hw data with missing points interpolated from regression analysesDataset3bContains data for case study inaturalist.id = id of observation from iNaturalist.org julian.date.wyear = julian date including year julian.date = julian date used in analyses month = month latitude = decimal latitude longitude = decimal longitude site.id = unique ID for site sympatric = whether observation is from zone of sympatry for two demoiselles (for banded demoiselle analyses, see main text) scientific_name = scientific name perched.tw = the total proportion of the surface of wings that is visible in perched photos perched.hw = the total proportion of the isolated hindwing that is visible in perched photos perched.tw_interpolated = perched.tw data with missing points interpolated from regression analyses perched.hw_interpolated = perched.hw data with missing points interpolated from regression analyses