Project 2491: 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/P2491, http://dx.doi.org/10.7934/P2491
This project contains | Matrices |
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Download Project SDD File ![]() | Total scored cells: 117 Total media associated with cells: 104 Total labels associated with cell media: 0 |
Characters | |
Total characters: 7 Total characters with associated media: 6 Total characters with media with labels: 0 Total character states: 14 Total character states with associated media: 14 Total character states with media with labels:0 Total unordered/ordered characters:7/0 |
Currently Viewing:
MorphoBank Project 2491
MorphoBank Project 2491
- Creation Date:
06 July 2016 - Publication Date:
30 May 2017 - Project views: 48901
- Media downloads: 1
- Matrix downloads: 1
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 ![]() | ||||||
Mariangeles Arce H. Project Administrator | 20 | 72 | 448 | 7 | 20 | 0 | 117 (109, 0, 8) | 104 | 0 | 2 | ||||
Maureen O'Leary Full membership ![]() | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Taxonomic Overview for Matrix 'M24107' (20 Taxa)
taxon | unscored cells |
scored cells ![]() |
no cell support ![]() |
NPA cells |
"-" cells | cell images | labels on cell images |
member access |
[1] Ictalurus furcatus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | none |
[2] Ictalurus balsanus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | none |
[3] Ictalurus punctatus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 | none |
[4] Ictalurus meridionalis Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 | none |
[5] Ameiurus catus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | none |
[6] Ameiurus serracanthus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | none |
[7] Ameiurus brunneus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | none |
[8] Ameiurus platycephalus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | none |
[9] Ameiurus natalis Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | none |
[10] Ameiurus melas Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | none |
[11] Ameiurus nebulosus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | none |
[12] Noturus flavus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | none |
[13] Noturus stigmosus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 | none |
[14] Prietella phreatophila Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | none |
[15] Pylodictis olivaris Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | none |
[16] Satan eurystomus Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | none |
[17] Cranoglanis bouderius Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | none |
[18] † Ictalurus countermani Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | none |
[19] † Ictalurus hazenensis Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | none |
[20] † Hypsidoris farsonensis Last Modified in 07/06/16 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | none |
Project views 
type | number of views | Individual items viewed (where applicable) |
Total project views | 48901 | |
Project overview | 1397 | |
Matrix views | 600 | Matrix landing page (559 views); Ictaluridae+Cranoglanididae (41 views); |
Media views | 29278 | Media search (1451 views); M424783 (185 views); M424801 (153 views); M424739 (185 views); M424769 (200 views); M424784 (150 views); M424740 (186 views); M424805 (216 views); M424834 (148 views); M424795 (180 views); M424747 (193 views); M424746 (200 views); M424797 (165 views); M424756 (195 views); M424758 (178 views); M424824 (170 views); M424754 (198 views); M424827 (174 views); M424791 (150 views); M424793 (145 views); M424836 (139 views); M424776 (166 views); M424799 (154 views); M424738 (236 views); M424759 (225 views); M424743 (186 views); M424803 (146 views); M424786 (156 views); M424826 (147 views); M424813 (140 views); M424804 (145 views); M424772 (172 views); M424767 (172 views); M424781 (176 views); M424785 (144 views); M424760 (168 views); M424810 (158 views); M424779 (156 views); M424818 (164 views); M424755 (187 views); M424814 (165 views); M424763 (222 views); M424751 (185 views); M424764 (186 views); M424796 (183 views); M424820 (156 views); M424752 (195 views); M424778 (164 views); M424833 (150 views); M424748 (203 views); M424766 (175 views); M424816 (156 views); M424745 (224 views); M424830 (152 views); M424744 (182 views); M424780 (185 views); M424782 (172 views); M424821 (145 views); M424775 (183 views); M424822 (163 views); M424790 (149 views); M424807 (153 views); M424829 (147 views); M424811 (153 views); M424768 (177 views); M424773 (215 views); M424809 (150 views); M424741 (201 views); M424750 (197 views); M424825 (174 views); M424770 (208 views); M424832 (162 views); M424749 (205 views); M424798 (139 views); M424787 (139 views); M424819 (152 views); M424788 (152 views); M424771 (176 views); M424815 (160 views); M424794 (163 views); M424753 (216 views); M424765 (189 views); M424774 (191 views); M424828 (161 views); M424757 (194 views); M424800 (156 views); M424823 (146 views); M424835 (156 views); M424742 (182 views); M424806 (252 views); M424812 (161 views); M424846 (83 views); M424848 (77 views); M424944 (84 views); M424913 (167 views); M424872 (75 views); M424918 (78 views); M424942 (80 views); M424914 (154 views); M424886 (72 views); M424950 (77 views); M424883 (88 views); M424951 (88 views); M424865 (73 views); M424923 (83 views); M424853 (79 views); M424930 (77 views); M424954 (85 views); M424932 (78 views); M424885 (82 views); M424890 (77 views); M424869 (83 views); M424845 (83 views); M424936 (85 views); M424907 (84 views); M424863 (79 views); M424903 (74 views); M424939 (78 views); M424896 (91 views); M424880 (80 views); M424891 (85 views); M424881 (78 views); M424858 (75 views); M424908 (78 views); M424910 (75 views); M424943 (91 views); M424919 (80 views); M424882 (76 views); M424901 (83 views); M424955 (76 views); M424842 (135 views); M424888 (74 views); M424898 (76 views); M424902 (79 views); M424946 (76 views); M424847 (75 views); M424927 (79 views); M424935 (81 views); M424893 (78 views); M424920 (78 views); M424878 (75 views); M424952 (82 views); M424949 (82 views); M424871 (162 views); M424915 (110 views); M424852 (84 views); M424909 (79 views); M424899 (81 views); M424876 (76 views); M424929 (77 views); M424906 (82 views); M424934 (83 views); M424850 (82 views); M424912 (81 views); M424855 (78 views); M424843 (82 views); M424777 (165 views); M424802 (133 views); M424884 (74 views); M424959 (76 views); M424905 (81 views); M424864 (83 views); M424856 (82 views); M424897 (88 views); M424838 (82 views); M424894 (81 views); M424874 (78 views); M424956 (79 views); M424866 (135 views); M424859 (75 views); M424875 (77 views); M424868 (79 views); M424937 (80 views); M424844 (79 views); M424867 (82 views); M424961 (77 views); M424938 (78 views); M424947 (81 views); M424960 (81 views); M424862 (86 views); M424945 (82 views); M424889 (82 views); M424928 (71 views); M424841 (138 views); M424900 (80 views); M424931 (77 views); M424877 (76 views); M424870 (72 views); M424924 (76 views); M424860 (83 views); M424861 (73 views); M424895 (77 views); M424839 (182 views); M424873 (79 views); M424941 (78 views); M424911 (76 views); M424953 (81 views); M424837 (77 views); M424849 (79 views); M424887 (76 views); M424926 (76 views); M424940 (81 views); M424948 (80 views); M424854 (76 views); M424933 (77 views); M424857 (72 views); M424840 (142 views); M424851 (77 views); M424879 (84 views); M424921 (74 views); M424917 (80 views); M424957 (74 views); M424925 (75 views); M424892 (78 views); M424922 (68 views); M424958 (76 views); M424737 (247 views); M424792 (157 views); M424789 (153 views); M424831 (161 views); M424762 (179 views); M424808 (164 views); M424817 (144 views); M424761 (178 views); M424916 (81 views); M424904 (93 views); M425017 (2 views); M425072 (3 views); |
Documents list | 497 | |
Views for media list | 1492 | |
Specimen list | 12387 | |
Taxon list | 2879 | |
Bibliography | 371 |
Project downloads 
type | number of downloads | Individual items downloaded (where applicable) |
Total downloads from project | 185 | |
Project downloads | 182 | |
Media downloads | 1 | M425072 (1 download); |
Document downloads | 1 | Supplementary Material (1 download); |
Matrix downloads | 1 | Ictaluridae+Cranoglanididae (1 download); |