Citizen Scientists’ Motivation to Participate in Environmental DNA (eDNA) Surveys: A Case Study on Monitoring Mammals in the UK

Broadhurst, Holly A.; Smith, Elin E.; Jackman, Jake M.; Singleton, Natalie; Tansley, Darren; Raynor, Robert; Guimarães Sales, Naiara; Ochu, Erinma; McDevitt, Allan D.

Abstract

This repository contains data files and scripts used in the analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding data for the study: Broadhurst, H. A., Smith, E. E., Jackman, J. M., Singleton, N., Tansley, D., Raynor, R., ... & McDevitt, A. D. (2025). Citizen Scientists’ Motivation to Participate in Environmental DNA (eDNA) Surveys: A Case Study on Monitoring Mammals in the UK. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 10(1).

The study involved citizen scientists collecting eDNA samples from two rivers and a beaver enclosure in Essex, UK. The samples were analysed using high-throughput sequencing, and results were used to assess both species presence and the impact of volunteer involvement on biodiversity monitoring efforts.

This repository includes processed data outputs, filtering scripts, and analysis scripts for four sequencing libraries (EWT1–EWT4).

Each sequencing library (EWT1–EWT4) has associated files for MOTU (Molecular Operational Taxonomic Unit) results and filtering:

EWT1_d3_MOTUs.csv: Final MOTU table for Library EWT1 (Similarly named files are available for Libraries EWT2, EWT3, and EWT4).
EWT1_NGS_filter.txt: OBITools sample list for EWT1 (Similarly named files are available for Libraries EWT2, EWT3, and EWT4).
EWT1_tag_switiching_and_filtering.txt: Tag-switching filtering script used for EWT1 (Similarly named files are available for Libraries EWT2, EWT3, and EWT4).
Obitools and motu filtering R script.txt: R script used for filtering, MOTU clustering, and post-processing. Includes steps for removing contaminants, low-frequency MOTUs, and tag-jumping artifacts.
Sample_sheet.csv: Details of each sample

• Acceptance Date: Jul 2, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Jul 2, 2025
• Publication Date: Jul 2, 2025
• Deposit Date: Jul 2, 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.29400851.v1
• Collection Date: Jul 2, 2025