Jason Bried, Leslie Ries, Brenda Smith, Michael Patten, John Abbott, Joan Ball-Damerow, Robert Cannings, Adolfo Cordero-Rivera, Alex Córdoba-Aguilar, Paulo De Marco, Jr, Klaas-Douwe Dijkstra, Aleš Dolný, Roy van Grunsven, David Halstead, Filip Harabiš, Christopher Hassall, Martin Jeanmougin, Colin Jones, Leandro Juen, Vincent Kalkman, Gabriella Kietzka, Celeste Searles Mazzacano, Albert Orr, Mary Ann Perron, Maya Rocha-Ortega, Göran Sahlén, Michael Samways, Adam Siepielski, John Simaika, Frank Suhling, Les Underhill, and  Erin White

BioScience, Volume 70, Issue 10, October 2020, Pages 914–923, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaa092

Insects are reportedly experiencing widespread declines, but we generally have sparse data on their abundance. Correcting this shortfall will take more effort than professional entomologists alone can manage. Volunteer nature enthusiasts can greatly help to monitor the abundance of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata), iconic freshwater sentinels and one of the few nonpollinator insect groups appreciated by the public and amenable to citizen science. Although counting individual odonates is common in some locations, current data will not enable a global perspective on odonate abundance patterns and trends. Borrowing insight from butterfly monitoring efforts, we outline basic plans for a global volunteer network to count odonates, including organizational structure, advertising and recruiting, and data collection, submission, and synthesis. We hope our proposal serves as a catalyst for richer coordinated efforts to understand population trends of odonates and other insects in the Anthropocene.