Open Research within Biodiversity Conservation: Participation, Access and Dissemination

I employed extensive citizen science protocols, including working with the UK’s largest road citizen science project, The Road Lab, collaborating with animal rescue centres, and recruiting 100 citizen scientists to assist my data collection

- Lauren Moore

Tell us a bit about you and your research.

Hi, I’m Lauren Moore, and I am a researcher at Nottingham Trent University, where my research focuses on the drivers of hedgehog population change and decline in wild animal populations. Crucially, I also study potential conservation measures that can be used to safeguard species in the wild. To date, my research has focused on deforestation in Madagascar and Brazil, bird migration in Poland, invasive species spread across Europe, illegal harvesting of fish, and much more. My PhD is centred in the multi-disciplinary field of road ecology, which is the study of how roads and traffic affect the environment for hedgehogs and how to mitigate these impacts.

Tell us about a project you were involved in which used Open Research practices and principles?

Roads are considered one of the most pressing contemporary conservation issues. However, explicit understanding about how roads affect hedgehog populations is limited as study designs rarely yield data with real-world relevance. In turn, effective conservation actions are inadequate, resulting in the local disappearance of certain hedgehog populations due to roads.

My research project aimed to: (1) identify the optimal study designs for assessing hedgehog population-level impacts of roads; (2) understand which individuals (male/female/adult/juvenile hedgehogs) were more at risk of road mortality and why; and (3) if and how animals change their movements around roads in a way that may fragment the population. The project consisted of global, national, and local studies. The latter used the west European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), a UK priority species for conservation, as a case study. Combining insight from the population and movement ecology aimed to ease the constraints surrounding decision-making for conservation planning and road mitigation.

Describe the open research practice(s) employed in your study. Why did you select them?

Early on, I developed my data management plan outlining how I would openly share my data and code on FigShare, using the FAIR data principles. This aimed to improve the transparency of the data analysis and results of my work, enabling others to adopt the same methods with their own dataset and produce vital cross-study comparisons. These comparisons, such as in meta-analyses, may reveal trends and findings that would otherwise be unattainable. Sharing code also enables its re-use and increases the efficiency of future research by others  .

In the scoping phase of a data chapter, I undertook extensive consultation with cross-discipline experts to gather meaningful insight for study design and open data practices.

I employed extensive citizen science protocols, including working with the UK’s largest road citizen science project, The Road Lab, collaborating with animal rescue centres, and recruiting 100 citizen scientists to assist my data collection. I achieved the latter through leaflet drops, social media posts, and writing newspaper articles. This citizen science approach was critical for many reasons. Firstly, it enabled me to collect a sample size that far exceeded expectations which increased the robustness of my data. Secondly, involving the public and local communities enabled me to inspire others about biodiversity, whether in their own gardens, town, or further afield. In fact, several villages in Nottinghamshire later joined national conservation initiatives, such as Britain’s Biggest Hedgehog Street, which was won by Keyworth in south Nottinghamshire, and the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme, which Farnsfield in central Nottinghamshire is an integral part of.

All three of my PhD papers so far are open access to make them findable and accessible – this is important, as the public contributed significantly to the research and this makes it easier for the public to access the outcomes. My latest publication also set out key steps to bolster open research and discussions in road ecology, including dedicated conversation venues and a case study library.  On top of this, I wrote open access journal articles and non-technical blogs about my research, including several for The Conversation, TransportEcology.info, and the Mammal Society.

Did you face any challenges in the project, and how did you overcome them?

A challenge of sharing data was formatting the data in a way that was understandable to everyone, so that it can be reused for different purposes. For example, the data table for a data chapter publication had 2,340 cells with a quantitative and qualitative information. In this and other open data uploads, I adopted simple column headings and produced a data key to help readers understand the content. Moreover, an additional challenge is determining the most appropriate file repository for your data needs. I chose Figshare for my data as it is highly applicable to ecological data, free to access, and hosts long-term data preservation.

Similarly, open data sharing in ecology had the challenge of working with sensitive data. For example, my global study identified poaching data on threatened and endangered species. As such, I carefully considered what data was essential to share and increased the scale of locational data to protect species home ranges. This balances the need to be ‘as open as possible and closed as necessary’.

A challenge I faced when working with citizen scientists is the potential tension between researchers and welfare campaigners. I wanted to be an example of how these two parties could work together. Therefore, I conducted extensive outreach to explain the objectives of our research, how both research and animal welfare could benefit from open collaborations, and visited many campaigners in person.

What has been the impact of adopting open research practice(s)in your project?

Resulting from using open research practices like citizen science, my study produced one of the most comprehensive datasets on multi-site hedgehog demographics. This, alongside the data being freely available, has resulted in real-world utility of the data.   This includes being used in a re-assessment of the national hedgehog conservation status and the development of a species conservation strategy. For the latter, I shared my findings on the threat of roads to hedgehog populations with various stakeholders at workshops organised by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Here, my findings were discussed, and roads were compared to other known threats to the species, where it was deemed that roads were one of the primary drivers of hedgehog decline in Britain. We later used my data to identify cost-effective conservation measures, such as my where and when to prioritise road collision mitigation and urban vs rural habitat connectivity. The final conservation strategy was published in October 2024.

In addition, the open access nature of the work increased readership. For example, my first data chapter has a ResearchGate Research Interest Score that is higher than 99% of research items published in 2023. In addition, my data has been cited in and informed two book chapters (Ghosts in the Hedgerow and Crossings). The latter developed our call for open access platforms for road ethics discussions and research.

To take open research practices beyond publication, I also led 24 outreach projects and participated in 20 TV and radio interviews across local, national, and international platforms on my research findings.

What did you learn from making this project ‘open’? Do you have any advice for others considering adopting open research practices?

I learnt first-hand how open research quickly and directly impacts real-world solutions. After all, making impact is why we do the research. For me, research is not finished until it is communicated. In addition, I learnt that there is always more to learn and collaborating with people in open research, whether by expert consultations or citizen science, can add real strength to your research. Speaking with people with varying expertise can help identify risks and opportunities in research, different implications and uses of the findings, and prospects for future projects. I learnt that research and its implications is often more interdisciplinary than we think, and open sharing and discussions around the work can not only boost its applicability but reduce replication in efforts as well. It goes without saying too that collaborating makes research more enjoyable!

There is no ‘one rule’ for producing open research. Find a way, or several, that works for you. In general, I would advise anyone to share your research as widely as possible and to different audiences. Word-of-mouth is a powerful tool and you never know what it could lead to. For example, after NTU’s press team and I shared a press release on my research in 2020 that was picked up by news outlets such as ITV, I was approached by a water technology company, ACO, that offered to fund my research. From this, I was able to produce an additional nationwide study on the effectiveness of road tunnels, which is the largest study of its kind in the UK to date. Similarly, in 2022, a habitat connectivity company, Animex International, reached out on a rewilding bridge project that I later consulted on. These are just two examples of the many additional opportunities resulting from open practices, and that’s only the beginning!

What are you working on now?

I am currently working with a brilliant team on an open-access platform called TransportEcology.info. This is a free knowledge-sharing platform that publishes research, case studies, and best practise notes on all things infrastructure, transport, and ecology. The goal of TransportEcology.info is to raise the profile and accessibility of valuable research for practitioners to make informed, evidence-led decisions to ensure transportation projects are as ecologically friendly as possible. Our reach is global with engaged stakeholders that include engineers, planners, researchers, ecologists, regulators, consultants, and funders. We hope that by disseminating quality research and case studies, real impact can be made where it matters.

Follow Lauren’s research on:

• X: @L_J_Moore
• LinkedIn
• ResearchGate

Publications

Papers

Moore, L. J., Petrovan, S. O., Bates, A. J., Hicks, H. L., Baker, P. J., Perkins, S. E., & Yarnell, R. W. (2023). Demographic effects of road mortality on mammalian populations: a systematic review. Biological Reviews, 98(4), 1033-1050.

Moore, L. J., Arietta, A. A., Spencer, D. T., Huijser, M. P., Walder, B. L., & Abra, F. D. (2021). On the road without a map: why we need an “ethic of road ecology”. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9, 774286.

Moore, L. J., Petrovan, S. O., Baker, P. J., Bates, A. J., Hicks, H. L., Perkins, S. E., & Yarnell, R. W. (2020). Impacts and potential mitigation of road mortality for hedgehogs in Europe. Animals, 10(9), 1523.

Public Talks and Pieces

One of the three online, public talks I did on my research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkf2R7HmZxo

Press coverage of a workshop I co-ran on the Isle of Wight, intended to bring scientists, welfare experts, vets and the public together: https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/19442989.hedgehogs-event-sees-isle-wight-united-conservation-aim/?fbclid=IwAR2pB9tCaoAUWXuWlO9ddSrAwJsiYcCTnqlzOWb_LUnEkdHbJadfUjjTo8w

Workshops and talk I did on my research at the Natural History Museum: https://wollatonhall.org.uk/extinction-events-then-and-now-biodiversity-in-danger/

The Canadian documentary that covered a segment on my research. Note the reference to research on hedgehogs half-way through this article: https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/natures-big-year#:~:text=NOW%20STREAMING%20ON%20CBC%20GEM&text=%E2%80%9CI%20was%20shocked%20and%20completely,pause%2C%20nature%20seized%20the%20moment.

Example online newsletter I wrote to engage and recruit citizen scientists in my Nottinghamshire study sites: https://www.bramleynewspaper.co.uk/hedgehog-surveys-the-results-are-in/

Lauren Moore | Nottingham Trent University