Five-needle Pine Citizen Science Monitoring Pilot Project

Leveraging citizen science to support long-term monitoring of five-needle pines in the North Cascade mountains.
Whitebark pine branches and needles near Cutthroat Pass, North Cascade Mountains, Washington.

Read the Report!

The report summarizes the results of the pilot study and is available to download here: Five-needle Pine Citizen Science Monitoring Pilot Project Summary Report.

In addition, an article summarizing the pilot project was published in the Spring 2025 edition of Douglasia – Journal of the Washington Native Plant Society!

Introduction

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), a high elevation five-needle pine found across western North America, including Washington State, was recently listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (USFWS 2022).

Whitebark pine is a keystone species in the subalpine ecosystems where it occurs, meaning other species in an ecosystem largely depend on it to such a degree that if removed, the ecosystem would change drastically. There are many threats to whitebark pine, including pests and disease, climate change, and wildfires.

Other species of five-needle pines are also in decline across western North America. For instance, Goeking and Windmuller-Campione (2021), in their assessment of five-needles pines throughout the western United States, found that both whitebark and limber pine (P. flexilis) exhibited increased levels of mortality that occurred faster than the growth of surviving trees. Similarly, western white pine (P. monticola), another pine native to Washington State, is also in decline due to a combination of pests and pathogens, fire suppression, and logging (Mee-Sook et al. 2011).

The recent threatened listing of whitebark pine and the decline in other five-needle pines highlights the urgent need for data on the location and status of five-needle pine populations across western North America. Most federal and state land management agencies have programs to capture forest data. For instance, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program is a long-term monitoring program that provides the information needed to assess America’s forests. However, crowd- sourced data from citizen science projects is emerging as an important supplemental source of information for conservation and biodiversity research (Bonney et al. 2009, de Sherbinin et al. 2021).

The recent threatened listing of whitebark pine and the decline in other five-needle pines highlights the urgent need for data on the location and status of five-needle pine populations across western North America. Most federal and state land management agencies have programs to capture forest data. For instance, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program is a long-term monitoring program that provides the information needed to assess America’s forests. However, crowd- sourced data from citizen science projects is emerging as an important supplemental source of information for conservation and biodiversity research (Bonney et al. 2009, de Sherbinin et al. 2021).

Citizen science is when the public, both scientists and non-scientists, voluntarily contributes to scientific research. The advantages of citizen science data include its free availability, the established infrastructure for storing observations (such as iNaturalist), and being crowd-sourced; the amount of data collected primarily depends on individuals’ awareness and willingness to get involved. Additionally, participants in citizen science projects gain an appreciation for the subject matter of a given study and feel a sense of involvement, thereby increasing awareness and advocacy. One disadvantage of citizen science data is that the quality of the observations is often unknown or lacking (Aceves-Bueno et al. 2017, Di Cecco et al. 2021).

Western white pine (Pinus monticola), another 5-needle pine that occurs in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington State.

Another disadvantage is that the observations are unstructured, meaning they do not follow a statistically rigorous study design and are usually skewed spatially towards roads and trails, i.e., easy access areas (Callaghan et al. 2019).

To leverage the power of citizen science while minimizing the downsides of gathering information on five- needle pines, I employed a three-pronged approach of outreach, education, and engagement. The Whitebark Pine Project website (https://elfinwoodecology.org/the-whitebark-pine-project/) addresses outreach and compiles information and resources to raise awareness of five-needle pines. It also addresses the education component by hosting information on citizen science best practices; a five- needle pine identification guide including a key to the five-needle pines of western North America; and descriptions of five-needle pines.

To increase engagement in five-needle pine citizen science in Washington State, I implemented a citizen science monitoring program in the North Cascade mountains in July 2023 to collect data to assess the status and trends of five-needle pines, specifically whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and western white pine (Pinus monticola). The project aimed to establish baseline data in a small area of the North Cascade mountains to serve as a proof-of-concept for a scalable citizen science monitoring program for five-needle pines. This project provides a model for developing similar citizen science monitoring programs in local communities across the western U.S. led by local “ambassadors” collaborating with state native plant societies, ski areas, state and federal land managers, and the U.S. Forest Service.

  • The specific objectives of this pilot project were to:
  • Perform local community outreach and education and recruitment of volunteers to support the data collection.
  • Prepare a statistically robust study design (e.g., stratified-random sample).
  • Develop and test field methods for collecting monitoring data on five-needle pine populations that dovetail with the USFS FIA methods (USFS 2022).
  • Collect, analyze, and report on the monitoring data.

This project recently was awarded funding through a modest grant from the Washington Native Plant Society

Literature Cited

Aceves-Bueno, E., A. Adeyemi, M. Feraud, Y. Huang, M. Tao, Y. Yang, S. Anderson. 2017. The Accuracy of Citizen Science Data: A Quantitative Review. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America. 98. 278- 290. 10.1002/bes2.1336.

Bonney, R., C.B. Cooper, J. Dickinson, S. Kelling, T. Phillips, K.V. Rosenberg, J. Shirk. 2009. Citizen Science: A Developing Tool for Expanding Science Knowledge and Scientific Literacy, BioScience, 59 (11): 977–984. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.9

Callaghan C.T., J. Rowley, W. Cornwell, A. Poore, R. Major. 2019 Improving big citizen science data: Moving beyond haphazard sampling. PLoS Biol 17(6): e3000357. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000357

de Sherbinin A., A. Bowser, T-R Chuang, C. Cooper, F. Danielsen, R. Edmunds, P. Elias, E. Faustman, C. Hultquist, R. Mondardini, I. Popescu, A. Shonowo, and K. Sivakumar. 2021. The Critical Importance of Citizen Science Data. Frontiers in Climate. 3:650760. doi: 10.3389/fclim.2021.650760

Di Cecco, G.J., V. Barve, M.W. Belitz, B.J. Stucky, R.P Guralnick, A.H Hurlbert. 2021. Observing the Observers: How Participants Contribute Data to iNaturalist and Implications for Biodiversity Science, BioScience, Volume 71 (11): 1179–1188. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biab093

Goeking S.A. and M.A. Windmuller-Campione. 2021. Comparative species assessments of five-needle pines throughout the western United States. Forest Ecology and Management. 496: 119438.

Mee-Sook K., B.A. Richardson, G.I. McDonald, and N.B. Klopfenstein. 2011. Genetic diversity and structure of western white pine (Pinus monticola) in North America: a baseline study for conservation, restoration, and addressing impacts of climate change. Tree Genetics & Genomes (2011) 7:11–21.

USFS (U.S. Forest Service). 2022. Volume 1: Field Data Collection Procedures. Forest Inventory and Analysis Resource Monitoring and Assessment Program. Pacific Northwest Research Station. 562 p.

USFWS (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). 2022. Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Species Status With Section 4(d) Rule for Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis), 87 FR 76882 (effective January 17, 2023). 50 CFR 17. Available on-line: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2022-27087

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