Project 2490: M. A. O'Leary, K. Alphonse, M. Arce Hernandez, D. Cavaliere, A. Cirranello, T. Dietterich, M. Julius, S. Kaufman, E. Law, M. Passarotti, A. Reft, J. Robalino, N. B. Simmons, S. Smith, D. Stevenson, E. Theriot, P. M. Velazco, R. Walls, M. Yu, M. Daly. 2018. Crowds replicate performance of scientific experts scoring phylogenetic matrices of phenotypes. Systematic Biology. 67 (1):49-60.
Abstract
Scientists building the Tree of Life face an overwhelming challenge to categorize phenotypes (e.g., anatomy, physiology) from millions of living and fossil species. This biodiversity challenge far outstrips the capacities of trained scientific experts. Here we explore whether crowdsourcing can be used to collect matrix data on a large scale with the participation of the non-expert students, or “citizen scientists.” Crowdsourcing, or data collection by non-experts, frequently via the internet, has enabled scientists to tackle some large-scale data collection challenges too massive for individuals or scientific teams alone. The quality of work by non-expert crowds is, however, often questioned and little data has been collected on how such crowds perform on complex tasks such as phylogenetic character coding. We studied a crowd of over 600 non-experts, and found that they could use images to identify anatomical similarity (hypotheses of homology) with an average accuracy of 82% compared to scores provided by experts in the field. This performance pattern held across the Tree of Life, from protists to vertebrates. We introduce a procedure that predicts the difficulty of each character and that can be used to assign harder characters to experts and easier characters to a non-expert crowd for scoring. We test this procedure in a controlled experiment comparing crowd scores to those of experts and show that crowds can produce matrices with over 90% of cells scored correctly while reducing the number of cells to be scored by experts by 50%. Preparation time, including image collection and processing, for a crowdsourcing experiment is significant, and does not currently save time of scientific experts overall. However, if innovations in automation or robotics can reduce such effort, then large-scale implementation of our method could greatly increase the collective scientific knowledge of species phenotypes for phylogenetic tree building. For the field of crowdsourcing, we provide a rare study with ground truth, or an experimental control that many studies lack, and contribute new methods on how to coordinate the work of experts and non-experts. We show that there are important instances in which crowd consensus is not a good proxy for correctness.Read the article »
Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syx052
Project DOI: 10.7934/P2490, http://dx.doi.org/10.7934/P2490
This project contains | Matrices |
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Download Project SDD File ![]() | Total scored cells: 103 Total media associated with cells: 106 Total labels associated with cell media: 1 |
Characters | |
Total characters: 8 Total characters with associated media: 3 Total characters with media with labels: 0 Total character states: 23 Total character states with associated media: 23 Total character states with media with labels:0 Total unordered/ordered characters:8/0 |
Currently Viewing:
MorphoBank Project 2490
MorphoBank Project 2490
- Creation Date:
05 July 2016 - Publication Date:
30 May 2017 - Project views: 42608
- Matrix downloads: 4
This research
supported by
Authors' Institutions
- Ohio State University
- Oregon State University
- University of Arizona
- University of Michigan
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Waterloo
- American Museum of Natural History
- Drexel University
- Kenx Technology Inc
- New York Botanical Garden
- St. Cloud State University
- Stony Brook University
- Whirl-i-gig
- College of William and Mary
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Members
member name | taxa ![]() |
specimens ![]() |
media ![]() | chars ![]() | character
| cell scorings (scored, NPA, "-") | cell
| rules ![]() | ||||||
Edward Theriot Project Administrator | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Matthew Julius Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Maureen O'Leary Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Anna Mengjie Yu Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Taxonomic Overview for Matrix 'M24106' (13 Taxa)
taxon | unscored cells |
scored cells ![]() |
no cell support ![]() |
NPA cells |
"-" cells | cell images | labels on cell images |
member access |
[1] Cyclotella atomus atomus Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 1 | none |
[2] Cyclotella distinguenda Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[3] Cyclotella atomus marina Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[4] Cyclotella gamma Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[5] Cyclotella choctawhatcheeana Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | none |
[6] Cyclotella cryptica Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | none |
[7] Cyclotella litoralis Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[8] Cyclotella cf. meneghiniana (l1263) Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[9] Cyclotella nana Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[10] Cyclotella quillensis Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[11] † Cyclotella undescribed miocene ect 765 Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[12] Cyclotella striata Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[13] Cyclotella stylorum Last Modified in 07/05/16 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
Project views 
type | number of views | Individual items viewed (where applicable) |
Total project views | 42608 | |
Project overview | 1134 | |
Matrix views | 649 | Matrix landing page (609 views); Cyclotella qualitative characters (40 views); |
Media views | 33567 | Media search (1765 views); M424498 (226 views); M424509 (268 views); M424547 (190 views); M424572 (168 views); M424488 (243 views); M424487 (221 views); M424502 (206 views); M424485 (206 views); M424541 (175 views); M424520 (183 views); M424562 (200 views); M424504 (222 views); M424529 (192 views); M424531 (203 views); M424567 (188 views); M424538 (186 views); M424500 (231 views); M424482 (195 views); M424511 (267 views); M424551 (205 views); M424478 (219 views); M424568 (200 views); M424609 (88 views); M424664 (84 views); M424586 (121 views); M424690 (95 views); M424651 (93 views); M424695 (91 views); M424614 (86 views); M424688 (126 views); M424640 (86 views); M424663 (90 views); M424677 (79 views); M424685 (110 views); M424655 (87 views); M424595 (88 views); M424696 (82 views); M424699 (86 views); M424604 (110 views); M424556 (195 views); M424607 (85 views); M424686 (89 views); M424659 (86 views); M424577 (174 views); M424544 (197 views); M424493 (220 views); M424570 (185 views); M424512 (230 views); M424650 (86 views); M424674 (84 views); M424611 (84 views); M424675 (101 views); M424693 (88 views); M424658 (93 views); M424592 (84 views); M424616 (83 views); M424589 (104 views); M424700 (96 views); M424631 (83 views); M424601 (111 views); M424641 (82 views); M424638 (84 views); M424625 (79 views); M424612 (91 views); M424662 (85 views); M424584 (82 views); M424669 (81 views); M424596 (109 views); M424665 (83 views); M424642 (90 views); M424639 (83 views); M424678 (83 views); M424585 (124 views); M424646 (96 views); M424626 (81 views); M424666 (104 views); M424661 (89 views); M424579 (108 views); M424636 (101 views); M424652 (87 views); M424682 (89 views); M424599 (82 views); M424657 (88 views); M424582 (86 views); M424583 (120 views); M424672 (79 views); M424689 (86 views); M424597 (82 views); M424550 (178 views); M424491 (212 views); M424539 (174 views); M424533 (177 views); M424554 (194 views); M424517 (191 views); M424480 (216 views); M424522 (183 views); M424495 (201 views); M424507 (265 views); M424569 (161 views); M424676 (87 views); M424610 (105 views); M424492 (227 views); M424654 (76 views); M424540 (185 views); M424602 (85 views); M424647 (81 views); M424645 (83 views); M424573 (174 views); M424588 (89 views); M424593 (93 views); M424660 (107 views); M424598 (88 views); M424615 (98 views); M424701 (148 views); M424608 (97 views); M424667 (104 views); M424697 (90 views); M424648 (86 views); M424668 (82 views); M424549 (184 views); M424523 (206 views); M424687 (87 views); M424627 (91 views); M424624 (123 views); M424581 (82 views); M424643 (96 views); M424670 (90 views); M424629 (91 views); M424628 (86 views); M424578 (80 views); M424622 (112 views); M424594 (98 views); M424606 (105 views); M424694 (82 views); M424656 (95 views); M424632 (91 views); M424680 (88 views); M424580 (90 views); M424698 (99 views); M424692 (82 views); M424618 (103 views); M424635 (81 views); M424673 (95 views); M424634 (91 views); M424603 (80 views); M424630 (119 views); M424633 (97 views); M424613 (108 views); M424683 (93 views); M424681 (93 views); M424619 (104 views); M424620 (83 views); M424679 (105 views); M424591 (85 views); M424605 (87 views); M424617 (90 views); M424590 (82 views); M424621 (105 views); M424653 (88 views); M424684 (80 views); M424691 (82 views); M424587 (113 views); M424637 (128 views); M424600 (86 views); M424671 (100 views); M424649 (81 views); M424501 (190 views); M424483 (233 views); M424565 (178 views); M424490 (220 views); M424481 (230 views); M424536 (168 views); M424564 (191 views); M424548 (179 views); M424532 (176 views); M424489 (206 views); M424576 (167 views); M424534 (208 views); M424486 (198 views); M424546 (207 views); M424537 (181 views); M424513 (211 views); M424574 (198 views); M424496 (218 views); M424527 (178 views); M424508 (210 views); M424557 (176 views); M424530 (188 views); M424566 (212 views); M424571 (200 views); M424552 (192 views); M424525 (209 views); M424519 (235 views); M424515 (207 views); M424563 (168 views); M424516 (209 views); M424543 (194 views); M424506 (236 views); M424503 (195 views); M424514 (226 views); M424560 (191 views); M424542 (197 views); M424499 (201 views); M424575 (200 views); M424545 (196 views); M424559 (168 views); M424526 (202 views); M424555 (198 views); M424497 (220 views); M424702 (91 views); M424479 (212 views); M424558 (176 views); M424623 (85 views); M424521 (199 views); M424484 (213 views); M424553 (200 views); M424535 (186 views); M424518 (186 views); M424644 (85 views); M424494 (213 views); M424528 (201 views); M424505 (233 views); M424712 (3 views); M424561 (202 views); M424524 (207 views); M424510 (196 views); M424714 (3 views); M424723 (5 views); M424703 (3 views); M424706 (6 views); M424707 (3 views); M424731 (3 views); M424728 (2 views); M424711 (2 views); M424716 (3 views); M424715 (3 views); M424717 (2 views); M424733 (4 views); M424705 (5 views); M424727 (3 views); M424725 (2 views); M424722 (2 views); M424720 (3 views); M424736 (4 views); M424718 (4 views); M424726 (2 views); M424729 (4 views); M424704 (3 views); M424719 (4 views); M424730 (4 views); M424708 (3 views); M424709 (3 views); M424724 (2 views); M424713 (2 views); M424732 (7 views); M424735 (2 views); M424710 (3 views); M424721 (3 views); M424734 (1 view); |
Taxon list | 922 | |
Specimen list | 4039 | |
Views for media list | 1333 | |
Bibliography | 427 | |
Documents list | 537 |
Project downloads 
type | number of downloads | Individual items downloaded (where applicable) |
Total downloads from project | 135 | |
Project downloads | 131 | |
Matrix downloads | 4 | Cyclotella qualitative characters (4 downloads); |