DOI: 10.5061/dryad.dfn2z35fv
title: Data and code from: Public participation in tropical conservation and environmental management research: Towards a locally grounded and reflexive practice

description: This dataset supports an investigation into the publication records of
 public participation in tropical conservation and environmental management
 research. It includes information from 453 relevant papers published up
 through 2020 and identified via Web of Science core collection, processed
 by the co-authors, and analyzed using R. It also includes preliminary
 information on relevant papers identified by the same methods from the
 years 2021-2024. This additional information is meant to facilitate
 similar research focused on these years, which were quite different from
 those prior due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
description: Data included in this dataset are associated with the paper
 titled, "Public participation in tropical conservation and
 environmental management research: Towards a locally grounded and
 reflexive practice" and accepted in <em>Biotropica</em>.
 They include: 
 <strong>SupplementaryInfo_Data.csv</strong> : The dataset used
 for this study. 
 <strong>ScriptFigs.R</strong> : The R script used to create
 Figures 1-3. 
 <strong>SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Data.csv</strong> :
 Incomplete dataset for search results from 2021-2024. Preliminary analysis
 on this dataset is included in Section F of the Supplementary Information
 document associated with Piland et al. This dataset can be the base for
 another bibliometric review as a comparison with this
 manuscript. 
 <strong>Script_2021-2024Data.qmd</strong> : The R script used
 to sample the incomplete dataset for search results from 2021-2024 for the
 preliminary analysis. 
 <strong>SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Sample.csv</strong> : 25%
 sample of “SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Data.csv. 
 The dataset covers: ●     
 <strong>Authorship variables</strong>: number of authors,
 first author, institution of first author, the country of the first
 institution, whether a local institution was included in the author list,
 and whether the first author’s institution was a local institution to the
 research. ●      <strong>Publication
 variables</strong>: year published, the language the paper was
 published in, the journal that published the paper, whether the paper was
 a part of a special issue, and the type of paper it was.
 ●      <strong>Practice of participation</strong>
 <strong>variables</strong>: categories of people who
 participated, whether the participation was active or passive (if there
 was a structure of participation set up for the research, or whether it
 used data from an existing structure such as eBird), the stage of research
 at which people participated, whether there was any training mentioned in
 the paper, and whether social media or mobile applications were used to
 collect data. ●      <strong>Subject matter
 variables</strong>: whether the research was basic or applied
 science, what the research topic was, and the taxonomy studied, if
 applicable. For both the research topic and taxonomy variables, we further
 categorized them. ●      <strong>Geography
 variables</strong>: where the research took place in terms of
 country, political region, ecosystem, and biogeographic region, and
 whether or not the research took place in an urban area.
 ●      <strong>Funding variables</strong>: The first
 funding institution listed, where the institution is based (country), and
 the type of funding institution it is. Data was
 collected via: <strong>i)
 Search</strong> Our literature review focused on
 the peer-reviewed literature published in English and available in the
 Core Collection of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI; Thomson
 Reuters) Web of Science database. Please see figure S1 for a schematic
 representation of the process described herein. The search included all
 the papers published online by August 12, 2020, containing the key terms:
 “Citizen science” OR “Public science” OR “Voluntary science” OR “Volunteer
 science” OR “Participatory Science” OR “Community science” OR
 “Community-based science” OR “Crowd-sourced science” OR “Participatory
 monitoring”  OR “Collaborative monitoring” OR “Community-based monitoring”
 OR “Voluntary biological monitoring” OR “Voluntary monitoring” OR
 “Participatory management”  OR “Collaborative management” OR
 “Collaborative-environmental management”  OR “Community-based management”
 OR “Public engagement in science” OR “Public participation in scientific
 research”. These terms were identified a priori in the literature to
 encompass the terminologies most frequently employed in the field (Conrad
 & Hilchey 2011; Shirk et al. 2012; Eitzel et al. 2017; Piland et
 al. 2020). After the initial search, we filtered the research categories:
 “ecology”, “biodiversity conservation”, “plant sciences'',
 “marine and freshwater biology”, “zoology”, and “fisheries”. A total of
 1,986 articles were identified and processed. A second
 identical search was carried out on December 10, 2024, at the request of
 <em>Biotropica</em> editors. We limited the search to papers
 published between August 12, 2020, and December 10, 2024. This search
 resulted in 3,785 articles identified for processing.
 <strong>ii) Paper processing</strong>
 We manually identified the papers that did research in tropical
 and subtropical ecoregions of the globe (total of first search = 661,
 33.3%; total of second search = 1,832, 48.4%). For terrestrial and
 freshwater ecosystems, we included all the research conducted in the
 Neotropic, Afrotropic, Indomalaya, Australasia and Oceania biogeographic
 realms (sensu Olson & Dinerstein 2002). For marine ecosystems, we
 included research conducted in the Tropical Eastern Pacific, Tropical
 Atlantic, Western Indo-Pacific, Central Indo-Pacific, and Eastern
 Indo-Pacific marine ecoregions (sensu Spalding et al. 2007).
 Broad literature reviews, synthesis or insights that do not focus
 specifically on the tropics or subtropics were not included. The same
 applies to analytical tools like apps, models and software that are not
 designed specifically for a tropical or subtropical region, or do not
 explore a tropical or subtropical case study. During the processing, we
 also excluded the papers that just mention citizen science or
 community-based management as recommendations or as future goals, instead
 of being an actual contribution based on citizen science or
 community-based efforts already in place. We also excluded papers in which
 community members and/or participants were the subject of the research
 rather than participants in the research process, papers in which
 volunteers were incorporated on an ad hoc basis rather than as an
 intentional part of the research process, where participants were part of
 graduate level courses, and where participants were paid. This process
 left us with 414 papers from the first search (20.9% of search results,
 62.6% of tropical papers) and 1,015 papers from the second search (26.8%
 of results, 55.4% of tropical papers). We furthered limited the second
 search results to those papers published through 2020 to limit the effect
 of potential influence from the COVID-19 pandemic and to adapt to our
 research team’s current capacity. This resulted in a dataset for the main
 publication that included 453 papers. The incompletely processed 2021-2024
 dataset (958 papers) is described in Section F of the Supplementary
 Information document associated with this manuscript.
 While processing papers for the bibliometric analysis, we
 realized that some publications (15 total) report results for more than
 one research investigation, which can be quite different in scope,
 research topic/location, approach, and type of public participation.
 Therefore, we opted to focus our analysis on the “research activities”
 described in the 453 papers, which we define here as the independent
 research investigations reported in each paper. We refer by “independent”
 the investigations applying completely different research methods and
 involving a unique set of public participation, which generally also
 focused on distinct ecosystems, locations, and taxonomic groups. For
 instance, Liebenberg et al. (2017) report the use of handheld computers
 with the software CyberTracker from two independent case studies
 monitoring large mammals, one conducted in Australia and another one in
 South Africa. Similarly, Matose & Watts (2010) present three
 independent case studies about timber harvesting and community-based
 forest management in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and South Africa. These
 examples illustrate the existing papers reporting more than one research
 activity that were accounted as independent sampling units in our data
 compilation.   A total of 484 research activities
 emerged from the 453 research papers selected for further examination in
 the bibliometric analysis. Resulting research activities were assessed for
 variables relating to authorship, publication, terminology, practice of
 participation, subject matter, geography, and funding.
 We also took additional notes from papers regarding the
 strategies taken for outreach of participants, the benefits to
 participants and to science identified, type of data collected, and other
 comments of interest. As authorship, publication and funding variables
 refer to the papers rather than the independent research activities, they
 were replicated across the activities reported in the same paper. The
 final dataset was then explored to produce the descriptive stats and
 visualizations presented in Section 3 (“Main trends in published
 literature”) of the associated manuscript.
description: # Data and code from: Public participation in tropical conservation and
 environmental management research: Towards a locally grounded and
 reflexive practice Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.dfn2z35fv](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dfn2z35fv) ##
 Description of the data and file structure The data in this dataset are
 based on a literature search in English and in the Core Collection of the
 Institute for Scientific Information (ISI; Thomson Reuters) Web of Science
 database, and a subsequent collection of information from manual
 extraction of data from each paper into a table of variables. ### Files
 and variables #### File: SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Data.csv
 **Description:** This is the data table for all the papers that were found
 in the literature search, time-bound for years 2021 to 2024. The papers
 were not completely processed, thus that many of the columns are blank,
 with the intention that if someone wants to focus on these four years,
 they have a base to start with. ##### Variables * processed_initials:
 Initials of the researcher that processed that paper, if applicable. *
 exclude?: Yes_*, No, or blank depending on whether the paper was excluded
 from the analysis. Exclusion criteria can be found in the Supplementary
 Information associated with this dataset (Piland et al. in *Biotropica*).
 The asterisk after the underscore in yes is meant to be replaced with the
 criteria by which papers were determined to be excluded. Blank means that
 the paper was not processed. * experience_id: Some papers have more than
 one research experience/activity described. In these cases, each
 experience/activity received a letter associated with the research
 experience.  * number_of_experiences: Number of research
 experiences/activities described in the research. * paper_id: Unique ID
 for each paper composed of Year_Author_PaperAbbreviation * search_id: This
 is the search by which this paper was found. "[official_search]"
 refers to the first search and "[updated_search]" refers to the
 search requested by *Biotropica* editors. * title: Title of the paper. *
 Number_authors: Number of authors. * first_author: LastName_FirstInitial
 for the first author of the paper. * first_inst: Institutional affiliation
 of the first author of the paper. * inst_country: Country where the
 institutional affiliation is headquartered. * inst_type: Type of
 institution at which the first author of the paper is affiliated. *
 inst_subnat: Subnational administrative unit (e.g., state in the United
 States) of the institution at which the first author of the paper is
 affiliated. * local_institution: Yes/No, whether any of the authors have
 an institutional affiliation that is in the same country as where the
 research was located. * lead_local_inst: Yes/No, whether the first author
 has an institutional affiliation that is in the same country as where the
 research was located. * main_fund: The first funding source listed in the
 acknowledgments of the paper, if available. NA means there was none
 listed. * fund_country: Country where the first funding source listed in
 the acknowledgments of the paper is located. * fund_national: Yes/No
 whether the first funding source listed in the acknowledgements of the
 paper is in the same country as the research. * fund_type: Type of funding
 source (corporate, academic, international cooperation, individual person,
 government, private foundation, network) * pub_year: Year the paper was
 published. * special_issue: Whether it was published as part of a special
 issue. Yes means yes, NA means that no special issue was mentioned. *
 language: Language the paper was published in. * journal: Journal the
 paper was published in. * paper_type: Type of paper (research means
 original empirical research; methods; review; comment; conceptual) *
 notes_paper: Any additional notes about the paper itself. *
 citizen_science: 1/0, whether the authors called their research
 "citizen science" * other_word: List of terms that the authors
 used other than "citizen science" to describe participation in
 their research. * science_type: Applied or Basic science, where applied
 meant that the research was specifically motivated by solving a problem. *
 citizen_pop: List of terms describing the people who participated in the
 research. * category_citizen_pop: Categories formed based on the list of
 terms describing the people who participated in the research. *
 active_passive: Type of participation described in the paper where active
 means that the participants knew they were participating in a specific
 research project while passive means that participants submitted data but
 did not actively know what research project they were participating in
 (e.g., eBird participants without any targeted outreach). *
 transparency_exp: Yes/No whether the paper described any communication
 about the research project with the participants. * training: Yes/No
 whether the paper described any training participants received. *
 participation_type: Research stages in which participants participated
 based on Shirk et al. 2012 * P_Category_Shrik: Based on Shirk et al. 2012,
 the type of participation the research described fit into. *
 benefit_cit_exp: Yes_* / no, where benefits to citizens were explained in
 the paper. If there was a benefit described, a short description of the
 benefit is included instead of the asterisk. * benefit_sci_exp: Yes_* /
 no, where benefits to science were explained in the paper. If there was a
 benefit described, a short description of the benefit is included instead
 of the asterisk. * technology: Analog or digital technology used to
 collect data. * data_type: List of types of data collected. *
 social_media: Yes_* / no whether social media was reported to be used in
 any part of the research (data collection, volunteer recruitment, etc.).
 If social media was named, the name replaces the asterisk. *
 natural_hist_app: Yes_* / no whether a natural history app was reported to
 be used in any part of the research. If an app was named, the name
 replaces the asterisk. * subnat: Subnational administrative unit of where
 the research described took place. * Country: Country where the research
 described took place.  * Region: Political region where country is located
 (Africa, Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Multiple, Northern America,
 Oceania) * ecosystem: Freshwater / Terrestrial / Marine / Multiple,
 ecosystem the research studied. * biogeo_region: If freshwater or
 terrestrial, Neotropic, Afrotropic, Indomalaya, Australasia, and Oceania
 biogeography realm (sensu Olsen and Dinerstein 2002). If marine, Tropical
 Eastern Pacific, Tropical Atlantic, Western Indo-Pacific, Central
 Indo-Pacific, and Eastern Indo-Pacific marine ecoregions (sensu Spalding
 et al. 2007). * urban: Yes/No, whether the research was exclusively about
 urban ecosystems. * research_topic: Paper's research topic. *
 research_topic_reviewed: Higher order category based on the Paper's
 research topic. * taxonomy: Taxonomy studied * taxonomy_reviewed: Animals,
 plants, other : specific taxonomy studied. * notes_exp: Any additional
 notes on the experience. * Checked...yes.no._.Who..: If it was double
 checked and by whom. #### File: SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Sample.csv
 **Description:** Sample from SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Data.csv to do the
 preliminary analysis described in the associated paper's
 Supplementary Info. Variables are the same
 as SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Data.csv.  #### File:
 SupplementaryInfo_Data.csv **Description:** Full dataset used for the main
 analysis in the associated paper. Timebound up through 2020. #####
 Variables **are the same as SupplementaryInfo_2021-2024Data.csv, except
 for the following:** * X: Artifact from R joining. * X.1: Artifact from R
 joining. * X.2: Artifact from R joining. ## Code/software -      
 **ScriptFigs.R** : The R script used to create Figures 1-3. -      
 **Script_2021-2024Data.qmd** : The R script used to sample the incomplete
 dataset for search results from 2021-2024 for the preliminary analysis.
 Figures 1 and 2 were created using R, RStudio, and ArcGIS. Figure 3 was
 created using R, Rstudio, and PowerPoint. Figure 4 was created in
 PowerPoint. ## Access information No other sources were used for the
 production of this dataset.