How motivation and project structure affect natural resource volunteerism in entomology

Volunteers and citizen scientists have facilitated many natural resource management programs, and due to limited budgets and personnel, there is a growing pressure for government agencies to solicit aid from members of the public. Despite a growing body of literature pertaining to volunteerism more broadly, natural resource volunteerism has rarely been experimentally explored. We produced an insect monitoring network and invited volunteers to participate. There were multiple versions of the invitation, tailored to potential volunteer preferences. The invitations also included flexibility in how data could be remitted and of what quality. We investigated the behavior of our volunteers in response to the invitation framing and their resultant selections.