Project 2577: M. A. O’Leary, K. Alphonse, A. H. Mariangeles, D. Cavaliere, A. Cirranello, T. G. Dietterich, M. Julius, S. Kaufman, E. Law, M. Passarotti, A. Reft, J. Robalino, N. B. Simmons, S. Y. Smith, D. W. Stevenson, E. Theriot, P. M. Velazco, R. L. 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: 10.1093/sysbio/syx052
Project DOI: 10.7934/P2577, http://dx.doi.org/10.7934/P2577
This project contains | Matrices |
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Download Project SDD File | Total scored cells: 140 Total media associated with cells: 122 Total labels associated with cell media: 148 |
Characters | |
Total characters: 20 Total characters with associated media: 20 Total characters with media with labels: 0 Total character states: 55 Total character states with associated media: 52 Total character states with media with labels:0 Total unordered/ordered characters:20/0 |
Currently Viewing:
MorphoBank Project 2577
MorphoBank Project 2577
- Creation Date:
21 December 2016 - Publication Date:
30 May 2017 - Project views: 67998
- Matrix downloads: 12
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 | ||||||
Andrea Cirranello Project Administrator | 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 | ||||
Nancy Simmons Full membership | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
Paul Velazco Full membership | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0, 0, 0) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Taxonomic Overview for Matrix 'M24371' (6 Taxa)
taxon | unscored cells |
scored cells |
no cell support |
NPA cells |
"-" cells | cell images | labels on cell images |
member access |
[1] Cynopterus sphinx Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 40 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 22 | 4 |
[2] Saccopteryx bilineata Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 25 | 4 |
[3] Trachops cirrhosus Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 25 | 4 |
[4] Kerivoula hardwickii Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 27 | 4 |
[5] Miniopterus schrebersii Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 26 | 4 |
[6] Erinaceus europaeus Last Modified in 12/21/16 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 23 | 4 |
Project views
type | number of views | Individual items viewed (where applicable) |
Total project views | 67998 | |
Project overview | 2709 | |
Matrix views | 1413 | Matrix landing page (1104 views); Bat Skull Matrix (309 views); |
Media views | 43268 | Media search (3598 views); M435071 (444 views); M435131 (377 views); M435137 (372 views); M435118 (351 views); M435083 (446 views); M435129 (347 views); M435095 (390 views); M435084 (439 views); M435053 (461 views); M435086 (465 views); M435107 (359 views); M435135 (359 views); M435141 (403 views); M435127 (356 views); M435113 (369 views); M435054 (459 views); M435064 (490 views); M435146 (396 views); M435124 (399 views); M435136 (377 views); M435089 (412 views); M435076 (432 views); M435085 (478 views); M435058 (501 views); M435068 (574 views); M435057 (474 views); M435106 (375 views); M435130 (387 views); M435104 (393 views); M435087 (491 views); M435116 (356 views); M435122 (386 views); M435142 (368 views); M435088 (483 views); M435060 (439 views); M435133 (390 views); M435070 (475 views); M435072 (482 views); M435063 (453 views); M435145 (366 views); M435081 (465 views); M435069 (479 views); M435138 (362 views); M435126 (365 views); M435147 (385 views); M435056 (486 views); M435108 (350 views); M435140 (345 views); M435091 (460 views); M435062 (448 views); M435111 (375 views); M435143 (377 views); M435082 (468 views); M435094 (375 views); M435080 (424 views); M435128 (372 views); M435059 (485 views); M435066 (486 views); M435125 (364 views); M435144 (358 views); M435067 (437 views); M435114 (401 views); M435061 (491 views); M435109 (348 views); M435090 (451 views); M435134 (360 views); M435077 (422 views); M435098 (402 views); M435123 (369 views); M435100 (400 views); M435119 (370 views); M435115 (378 views); M435096 (402 views); M435078 (446 views); M435074 (415 views); M435105 (379 views); M435112 (437 views); M435097 (401 views); M435148 (430 views); M435110 (378 views); M435055 (486 views); M435099 (398 views); M435093 (433 views); M435065 (466 views); M435121 (373 views); M435073 (437 views); M435132 (366 views); M435102 (390 views); M435092 (451 views); M435075 (442 views); M435120 (385 views); M435101 (403 views); M435117 (348 views); M435079 (444 views); M435139 (352 views); M435103 (376 views); |
Taxon list | 5729 | |
Specimen list | 9794 | |
Views for media list | 1144 | |
Documents list | 1024 | |
Bibliography | 2917 |
Project downloads
type | number of downloads | Individual items downloaded (where applicable) |
Total downloads from project | 284 | |
Project downloads | 270 | |
Matrix downloads | 12 | Bat Skull Matrix (12 downloads); |
Document downloads | 2 | Supplementary material (2 downloads); |