Use of citizen science for bird conservation in Brazil: are shorebirds contemplated?

Brazil is one of the countries with the greatest bird diversity in the world. Nevertheless, knowledge on population size, biology, distribution and conservation status of most species is still poorly understood. Recent discoveries of new species in the Atlantic Forest, one of the most well-known biomes of the country, illustrate this knowledge gap. In a highly-diverse country with continental proportions, as is Brazil’s case, citizen science programs can be an efficient and viable means of generating the necessary knowledge to fill in those gaps. Citizen science programs encourage an active participation of citizens in the production of technical and scientific information and has shown great results in the United States and in several European countries. Internet tools and phone applications have increased volunteer participation and recruitment. In Brazil, bird observation has been growing steadily, and citizen science along with it. Recent numbers from eBird show an increase of approximately five-fold in active users. In 2013 eBird Brazil had 244 users; in 2016 the number of users grew to 1084, accounting for 1,661 species observed. Another important example is the participatory monitoring conducted in four protected areas of São Paulo State, in which 138 citizen scientists observed 428 species. However, this impressive engagement has not helped shorebirds in Brazil, because the survey effort has been directed towards different environments and/or group of species. Therefore, the International Shorebird Survey may be an important tool to generate the knowledge necessary to better understand shorebird migration timing, site use and population trends in Brazil.