Using expert-elicitation to deliver biodiversity monitoring priorities on a Mediterranean island

The questionnaire was sent to stakeholders two weeks prior to the workshop and was com- pleted by individuals in private. Stakeholders were asked to select their organisation from a pre- populated list consisting of the following options: NGO; Government employees; University; Research Institute; Biological Recording (i.e., amateur experts, or citizen scientists); and, Other. They were also asked to provide additional information on their background if they selected the “Other” category. Stakeholders then selected their top three biodiversity interests from the list provided. A free-text box allowed the stakeholders to add additional information as needed. Next, stakeholders were asked to select their top ten monitoring needs from the list of 26 provided (Step 1) and to rank them. Stakeholders were encouraged to undertake this ranking task in a two-step process: (1) first review the list of 26 needs and mark ’N/A’ for the 16 biodi- versity monitoring needs that they considered least important, until they were left with the ten that were most important to them; (2) second, assign a score of 1–10 (with 1 being most important and 10 being least) to each of their remaining ten biodiversity monitoring needs. Stakeholders were also invited to add any further comments in a free text box. These com- ments were to be picked up in the wider discussion session within the expert-elicitation work- shop (Step 3). The results of the ranking exercise from each of the 27 stakeholders who responded (out of the 47 contacted) were combined to generate a single ranked list of 26 biodi-

versity monitoring needs (Table 1). The final question asked stakeholders to give one overall score as to whether the list of 26 biodiversity monitoring needs adequately represented perceived gaps in Cyprus. Stakeholders were asked to give a score between 1 (not useful at all) to 10 (very useful). S2 File gives the response data received from the 27 stakeholders. Step 3: Collaborative prioritisation of an overall list of biodiversity monitoring needs in Cyprus An expert-elicitation workshop was held on 31st August 2017 for our stakeholder network in order to try and reach a consensus on the top biodiversity monitoring needs (Fig 1). Thirty- Table 1. (Continued) � Theme Step 2 list of biodiversity monitoring needs (adapted from Pocock et al. [44]) Total number of times selected in top 10 Biological recorder (n = 2) Consultant (n = 2) Government (n = 7) NGO (n = 5) Researcher (n = 9) Other expertise (n = 2) Design/ Technological There are simple ways for everyone to report widespread/common/ easily-identified species 4 - - 2 (29%) 1 (20%) 1 (11%) - Human resource Examples of best practice are identified and shared between schemes and organisations 4 1 (50%) - 1 (14%) 1 (20%) - 1 (50%) Technological There are systems for electronically capturing data in the field 2 - 1 (50%) 1 (14%) - - - Results of ranking exercise of biodiversity monitoring needs from an online questionnaire sent to 47 invited stakeholders working in the field of biodiversity monitoring

in Cyprus. Twenty-seven stakeholders ranked their biodiversity monitoring needs for Cyprus from a list of 26 biodiversity monitoring needs. Stakeholders were asked to rank the monitoring needs that represented the 10 most important gaps or opportunities in biological recording in Cyprus, based on their perspective or experience (whereby 1 was the most important gap or opportunity and 10 was the least important gap or opportunity). The number of times each biodiversity monitoring need was selected by all the stakeholders is given alongside it. This score was then broken down into the number of responses from each of the six stakeholder affiliations and the percent of times it was chosen by the stakeholders within that affiliation, e.g. two consultants and they both selected “There is standardised methodology and protocols to ensure consistency” = 2 (100%). The cells are coloured in a grey-scale continuum, for the percent chosen from within each of the affiliations: 0%, 1–24%, 25–49%, 50– 74% and 75–100%. �Themes were added post-workshop. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256777.t001 PLOS ONE Expert-elicitation to prioritise biodiversity monitoring PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256777 March 24, 2022 7 / 20