www.biosciencemag.org June 2012 / Vol. 62 No. 6 • BioScience 531 Viewpoint Natural history, which is studied through the practice of directly observing plants and animals, has been the basis for key scientific advance- ments, including the theories of evo- lution and resource partitioning. Whether the term is applied to his- torical figures such as Charles Darwin, Robert MacArthur, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir or to present- day birdwatchers devotedly pursuing life lists, a naturalist can be character- ized as an individual pursuing deeper awareness or knowledge of species and ecosystems as a passion rather than as an occupation. Many naturalists con- tribute valuable observations to for- mal citizen science programs, such as breeding-bird surveys, the Christmas Bird Count, or plant surveys; there are also many individuals who document observations of plants or animals independent of any formal program or institution. Commitments made by such independent naturalists to their passion can span years or decades and range into the tens of thousands of hours. Data sets can be valued in the hundreds of thousands of dol- lars. These compilations of methodical and repeated observations have the potential to be very valuable resources to science, and increasingly, data col- lected by naturalists independent from an agency or academic institution are being used to document environmen- tal change and to advance science (e.g., Ledneva et al. 2004, Cook et al. 2008, Crimmins et al. 2009, Primack and Miller-Rushing 2012). Through our experience working with independent naturalists and their data, we have observed a need for a greater apprecia- tion and more respect in the scientific community for these individuals as a resource unto themselves, as well as a need for more active efforts to engage them in analyzing and interpreting their data. By acknowledging the value of the data collected by naturalists working independent of institutions, scientists stand to gain much through working with these data holders to access, ana- lyze, interpret, and archive these records, especially in cases in which the collectors are still living. Living naturalists can bring a wealth of ancillary information and ecosystem knowledge to the table, which can significantly enhance the analysis of their observations. Given the depth of commitment of some indepen- dent naturalists, these unique and poten- tially rich data sets may provide keys to answering questions that could not be addressed through traditional short- term research studies or even longer- term organized efforts. For example, we have worked with one such independent naturalist whose weekly observations span nearly three decades and encom- pass six vegetation communities along an elevation gradient. Using these data, we have been able to document clear changes in the organization of flower- ing communities across the elevation gradient and to link them to warming temperatures in the region (Crimmins et al. 2009). However, institutionally supported scientists and independent naturalists represent very different cultures, and bridging this gap to facili- tate data sharing, long-term data use, and the archiving of those data can be difficult. Within the scientific community, the value of data sharing is widely recognized (Parr 2007, Pullin and Salafsky 2010), and increasingly, institutions and jour- nals require this practice. The National Science Foundation states that funded investigators are “expected to share with other researchers… the primary data, samples, physical collections, and other Appreciating and Archiving Present-Day Naturalists’ Contributions to Science Theresa Crimmins and miChael Crimmins supporting materials” (www.nsf.gov/ bfa/dias/policy/dmp.jsp). Similarly, the Ecological Society of America expects authors publishing in its journals to “make the data underlying published articles available” (http://esapubs.org/ esapubs/journals/accepted.htm) and offers a data registry to facilitate such commu- nication and data sharing among sci- entists. The recently established Dryad (www.datadryad.org) is one such reposi- tory, and DataONE (www.dataone.org) is an example of a current push to develop best practices to facilitate data shar- ing among ecologists. However, these policies and data-sharing tools were primarily developed with professionals in mind and do not explicitly address independent naturalists’ situations. Such open data sharing is not necessarily a given for private data holders. Independent naturalists may invest huge amounts of time, energy, and money in the pursuit of their obser- vations; paid scientists are typically supported by their institution and paid for the time they spend in the laboratory or in the field. These dif- ferences in expenditures can color attitudes regarding how openly data might be shared. Namely, individu- als representing the institutional realm may— perhaps inadvertently—have un reasonable expectations for inde- pendent individuals’ willingness to share the rights and access to their data. There are several reasons for which independent individuals may be wary of such openness, including fears of a loss of control over their data and its interpretation or credit for their contri- butions. If they do choose to share their observations with others, independent naturalists may wish to retain some level of ownership or control over their data, in the form of acknowledgement in publications, involvement in analysis 532 BioScience • June 2012 / Vol. 62 No. 6 www.biosciencemag.org Viewpoint or interpretation, or authorship on publications including the data. We have also witnessed naturalists hesitate to share their observations for reasons including a lack of confidence that their data are actually useful or valuable, given their noncredentialed status; a concern over a lack of recognition of their efforts; a distrust of academic institutions; and a fear of rejection or dismissal by professional scientists. To ease the clash of cultures that can occur between independent nat- uralists who may not be comfort- able with sharing their life’s work and professional scientists who may have expectations for ready access to such observations, it may be best to treat the relationship as a partnership. Involving a living data collector in every stage of a project concerning their data may seem like an obvious choice, but our experience has been that this practice is frequently planned but not actually carried out. We call for a more overt effort in this direction on the behalf of scientists, engaging naturalists, to the extent that they desire, at every stage of an effort, including idea and question formulation, analysis, and the drafting of manuscripts. Independent natural- ists, who have invested a great deal in the pursuit of their observations, can offer a wealth of ecosystem knowl- edge that may be valuable in analysis and interpretation, as well as in for- mulating appropriate research ques- tions. Such deep organismal or system familiarity has the potential to truly enhance the work of professional sci- entists, who typically do not have the luxury of spending hundreds or thou- sands of hours in the field. Professional scientists can provide context, supple- mentary data sets, analytical tools, and a means for making results more readily accessible to the broader sci- entific community. Frequent contact among members of the independent- naturalist–professional-scientist part- nership may also have the added benefit of increasing the naturalist’s familiarity with the scientific process. Another improvement that can be made to facilitate independent- naturalist–professional-scientist data sharing is the development of data-use and data-attribution policies. Data-use policies establish ground rules for the use or sharing of data among parties, whereas data-attribution policies define expectations for acknowledgement and credit for the use of data. Such policies formalize the partnership and can be written to directly address any specific concerns that members of the partner- ship harbor. Ideally, they should be revisited periodically over the course of the project and respectfully carried out. We have established such policies with colleagues and an independent naturalist in several instances and feel that in addition to clarifying roles and expectations, they have helped the nat- uralist to feel more included. There is also a clear need to develop mechanisms for a long-term archiving of independent naturalists’ data that can ensure that the back-and-forth commu- nication characteristic of a true partner- ship between the data owner and the analyst can be upheld. What we en vision would expand on existing archives that house data and suggest proper use and acknowledgement by also facilitating direct involvement of the data provider in analysis and interpretation. The estab- lishment of these mechanisms will not only demonstrate recognition among the scientific community of the potential value of these observations but will also ensure the observations’ long-term pres- ervation. This could possibly be accom- plished through data-sharing nodes such as DataONE, the Avian Knowledge Network, or the USA National Phenology Network. This will require creativity and enhancements to the current types of data-sharing policies that are in place at data-sharing nodes. Independent naturalists and their observations have a demonstrated value to science, although these resources are at risk from a cultural divide and from a lack of mecha- nisms to discover and work with the data holders and to share and archive their data. We are calling for a serious treatment of this situation; science and society have much to lose by not valuing both the data and the col- lectors. It is imperative to find ways to discover and archive independent naturalists’ observations. Naturalists have much to offer to science; consider the lasting contributions of naturalists such as Alfred Wallace and Georges Cuvier. It is also important to engage these individuals as a resource, when they are willing, while we still can, because their direct experience can greatly enhance their raw data. Just imagine what sort of ancillary infor- mation we could gain if we could work with Henry David Thoreau or Aldo Leopold while analyzing their meticu- lous records of plant phenology! Acknowledgments We are thankful to C. David Bertelsen for sharing his rich and extensive data set; our experience working together provided the impetus for this piece. Jake F. Weltzin, Elizabeth Wolkovich, Alyssa Rosemartin, and Ellen Denny provided valuable comments that sig- nificantly improved the manuscript. The USA National Phenology Net- work’s National Coordinating Office staff also provided helpful input. References cited Cook BI, Cook ER, Huth PC, Thompson JE, Forster A, Smiley D. 2008. A cross-taxa phenological dataset from Mohonk Lake, NY and its relationship to climate. International Journal of Climatology 28: 1369–1384. Crimmins TM, Crimmins MA, Bertelsen CD. 2009. Flowering range changes across an elevation gradient in response to warming summer temperatures. Global Change Biology 15: 1141–1152. Ledneva A, Miller-Rushing AJ, Primack RB, Imbres C. 2004. Climate change as reflected in a naturalist’s diary, Middleborough, Massachusetts. Wilson Bulletin 116: 224–231. Parr CS. 2007. Open sourcing ecological data. BioScience 57: 309–310. Primack RB, Miller-Rushing AJ. 2012. Uncovering, collecting, and analyzing records to investigate the ecological impacts of climate change: A template from Thoreau’s Concord. BioScience 62: 170–181. Pullin AS, Salafsky N. 2010. Save the whales? Save the rainforest? Save the data! Conservation Biology 24: 915–917. Theresa Crimmins (theresa@usanpn.org) is a staff member of the USA National Phenology Network, in Tucson, Arizona. Michael Crimmins (crimmins@u.arizona.edu) is in the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.6.3