A systematic review of the role of community science in European wildlife governance

Community science (CS, previously often referred to as citizen science) has become a vital tool in wildlife monitoring, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of changes in species distributions and population trends. Consequently, the role of CS in informing wildlife management decisions has been increasingly discussed, with growing support for the adoption of CS. However, the extent to which evidence from CS-based wildlife monitoring projects translates into concrete governance outcomes remains largely unclear. To address this knowledge gap, in the context of the TransWILD Biodiversa+ project, we conducted a systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines. In total, we recorded 1588 articles and screened their abstracts using three exclusion criteria: i) absence of a wildlife or biodiversity focus; ii) absence of citizen or stakeholder involvement in wildlife monitoring; iii) lack of a clear link to governance. A full-text analysis was performed on 449 articles, after which we excluded studies that: did not focus on CS initiatives in Europe or had no clear implications for wildlife management and policy. Ultimately, this filtering resulted in 66 relevant articles. Mammals were the most represented taxonomic group (n=41), followed by birds (n=23), invertebrates (n=10), reptiles (n=9), fish (n=8), and amphibians (n=7). Participant involvement included multiple activities: species presence recording; sample collection; hunting bag recording; interviews; questionnaires; workshops; and focus groups. We identified five main categories of author-reported recommendations: 1) policy and law (n=39); 2) human-wildlife conflict mitigation measures (n=24); 3) protected area establishment and conservation measures (n=21); 4) education and behavioural change (n=17); 5) wildlife monitoring (n=17). The ‘policy and law’ recommendation category encompassed management strategies and plans, conservation policy, creation of laws and protocols, and hunting season modifications. In contrast, only a few articles (n=7) reported that CS initiatives had concrete management implications, such as changes to hunting practices, mitigation of vehicle collision, or invasive species management. Our analysis echoes ongoing debates on the role of CS as a policy-relevant tool, with many studies framing CS outputs as having implications for policy and law. However, our findings indicate that CS is commonly perceived as contributing to wildlife governance across multiple scales and dimensions, from informing the establishment of protected areas, to supporting local behavioural changes in favour of wildlife. While the direct impact of CS on formal wildlife policy remains poorly documented, we suggest that the potential implications of CS are likely to go far beyond the realm of policy and legislation. Further research should therefore focus on systematically analysing and unpacking CS project reports, official policy documents, and grey literature to better assess how, and to what extent, CS is shaping wildlife management and policy outcomes