The Oceanography Malta Research Group (OMRG) of the Department of Geosciences within the Faculty of Science, through Prof. Alan Deidun, Dr Adam Gauci, Mr Alessio Marrone, Ms Audrey Zammit and Mr David Montano, has achieved a quantum leap in its national efforts to manage a number of marine citizen science campaigns through the launch of an attractive new website, as well as through its collaboration with the ECSA (European Citizen Science Association). The new website serves as a central platform for the four different citizen science campaigns coordinated by the OMRG – namely, the Spot the Jellyfish, the Spot the Alien, the Spot the Alien Fish and the ANDROMEDA microplastics ones, which are all featured within the online database of the ECSA, which can be accessed online.
A number of species identification algorithms have been developed and published within peer-reviewed papers in recent years (e.g. on the webpage of the MDPI website and also available as a downloadable document [PDF]) and the plan is to integrate the same algorithms so that they can be used by the public when contributing to each campaign. The public can submit reports of alien and/or of jellyfish species, visualise spatially past validated records, order complementary copies of the campaign posters, acquire information about jellyfish sting treatment or even participate in the lionfish Early Warning System through the new portal.
A number of species identification algorithms have been developed and published within peer-reviewed papers in recent years (e.g. on the webpage of the MDPI website and also available as a downloadable document [PDF]) and the plan is to integrate the same algorithms so that they can be used by the public when contributing to each campaign. The public can submit reports of alien and/or of jellyfish species, visualise spatially past validated records, order complementary copies of the campaign posters, acquire information about jellyfish sting treatment or even participate in the lionfish Early Warning System through the new portal.
The Spot the Alien and Spot the Alien Fish citizen science campaigns were launched in 2016-2017 and they aim to promote the submission of reports of Non-Indigenous Species (NIS) spotted within Maltese waters by citizen scientists. The Spot the Alien Fish campaign focuses only on non-indigenous fish species, while the Spot the Alien campaign focuses on all other non-indigenous species. The Spot the Jellyfish citizen science campaign kicked off in June 2010, receiving to date thousands of jellyfish reports from the public. All validated submitted reports can be viewed online on a summary map which depicts jellyfish occurrence and distribution on a spatial and temporal scale.
The marine aliens and jellyfish spotting campaigns have, since their inception, resulted in a significant number of first species records for Maltese waters and, in a few rare cases, even in a few first records for the entire Mediterranean (e.g. in the case of the Guinean angelfish – Holocanthus africanus). It is estimated in fact that these campaigns added almost 30 previously unrecorded marine species to the biodiversity repository for Maltese waters, besides faithfully collecting scientific monitoring data for the most abundant of the same species. The same campaigns have been internationally acclaimed through an array of news portals, including EuroNews and The Guardian newspaper.
The ANDROMEDA microplastics smart phone app, developed through a past JPI Oceans project featuring the OMRG, which combines image analysis with citizen science, in turn, has been adopted along Black Sea coastlines as well, besides being used on Maltese beaches. All campaigns are featured within informative YouTube clips - Invasive Alien Species, Jellyfish 101, and Andromeda.
