Citizen-generated data on invasive alien pests in Romania: trends and challenges

Raising public awareness about IAS is essential, but a huge step in citizen assumed responsibility is represented by their willingness to cooperate and help scientist. Recent citizen science initiatives all around the world are leading to amazing results, but Romania has a very low response in citizen-generated data (CGD) on IAS. Mobile agriculture apps started to develop in Romania and to be used by farmers, but not the IAS apps. The current paper analyse the actual situation of Romanian CGD on IAP on different web platforms, presents the results of different attempts of getting information about Halyomorpha halys in Bucharest area from citizen in 2016 and tackle the challenges of CGD on IAP by an online survey addressed to the students and staff of University of Agronomic Science and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest. Report rates vary from 0.79‰ to 0.38% on web platforms to 0.14% for email and phone, while the answers to the survey related with IAS received 21.2% answers from teachers and colleagues and 10.5% from students. Face-to-face communication seems to improve the participatory rate, but only when personal commitment and passion of the researcher is shown.