The role of citizens in conservation science: a case study with threatened Brazilian butterflies

Many records from citizen science (CS) are used in scientific research related to biodiversity. Photographs of living species are valuable data from CS that are applicable to a range of ecological studies. The geographical ranges of threatened Brazilian butterflies were estimated based exclusively on data from photographs from CS sources, and these results were compared with estimates obtained without CS data. A total of 37 butterfly taxa (58.7% of all threatened butterflies from the Brazilian Red List) were identified from 335 photographic records taken by 187 citizen scientists from various CS surveyed sources. Comparing the estimates of geographical range with and without CS data, changes (all increases) were obtained for 26 taxa (70.3% of the taxa in this study). The presented results demonstrate the importance of CS to increase knowledge on threatened Brazilian butterflies, especially in data related to their conservation status. The involvement of general public in scientific research should be constantly encouraged, as the simple act of sharing photographs on the internet of a living organism in nature has the potential to contribute accurately and valuably to conservation science.Implications for insect conservation: The use of citizen science data is opportune and useful for many porpouses, as in the case of this study in improving the estimates of the geographical range of threatened species. Such data may lead to a new perspective in the conservation assessments of these taxa.