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. 2024 Sep 18:12:e18141.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.18141. eCollection 2024.

Buscando Luciérnagas: findings on Mexican fireflies from an 8-year virtual citizen science project

Ek Del-Val  1 , Ana M Flores-Gutiérrez  1 , Regina González  1 , Adrián Calleros  1
Affiliations

Buscando Luciérnagas: findings on Mexican fireflies from an 8-year virtual citizen science project

Ek Del-Val et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Fireflies are charismatic and conspicuous animals that often evoke childhood memories, which make firefly watching an emotional and even transformative experience. Citizen science projects have the potential to enhance transformative interactions with nature. Like many insects, firefly populations are declining due to land-use change, urbanization and watershed pollution, but ecological data for this group is scarce, particularly in Mexico. Virtual Citizen Science (VCS) initiatives can serve as a scientific instrument, yield reliable and relevant scientific data, and may also offer a platform to promote broader educational outcomes. We established a VCS project to document fireflies through a Facebook page named Buscando Luciernagas with the following hashtag in every post #veobrillar in 2015. After seven years we complied the gathered data and analyzed the results. We had 647 reports in total, with strong fluctuations from year to year that were correlated with the number of posts and publicity we made each year. The largest number of sightings (319) occurred in 2021, coinciding with a change in our reporting format. Most of the reports came from central Mexico (91.5%), but we had reports from eight states and also received some international reports from nine different countries. Fireflies were most frequently seen in habitats characterized as grasslands (35%) or forests (27%), followed by gardens (17%), vacant lots (9%) and parks (5%) but also paved areas and agricultural lands were reported (3% each). Most citizen scientists reported few fireflies, 1-5 individuals (31%) while only 11% reported more than 50 fireflies per sighting. Our study can serve as a preliminary approach to explore more focused research areas in the future. For example, in areas with no sightings, we could reach out to specific local people to corroborate that there are no fireflies in the region, or in areas with high sightings we could promote conservation measures. Notably, we found it intriguing to discover numerous sightings of fireflies in urban areas, which could offer a potential avenue for further research in urban ecology.

Keywords: Anthropization; Bioluminescence; Citizen science; Conservation; Lampyridae; Monitoring; Urban ecosystems.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Temporal trend of firefly sightings reported in Buscando luciernagas.
Number of reported sightings from 2015–2022, showing the year when we changed our reporting format.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Locations of firefly sightings throughout Mexico.
Data are shown by municipality. Lighter areas correspond with municipalities with greater number of firefly sightings. Lines in black are State boundaries. Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Firefly sightings per habitat type.
Number of firefly sightings regarding reported habitats.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Firefly sightings per abundance category.
Number of firefly sightings regarding abudance category. N/A corresponds to reports that did not include abundance.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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