Community Scientists Fill Gaps in Knowledge Generation, Education, and Enforcement in Social-Ecological Systems

Abstract Community scientists play a critical role in developing, interpreting, and sharing the science needed to understand complex human and ecological systems. In this paper, we present a novel framework for analyzing the complex interactions of community scientists, highlighting their vital role in filliing capacity gaps throughout social-ecological systems. Our framework identifies three key boundaries spanned by community scientists: knowledge generation, education, and enforcement. We further show that these boundary spanning roles emerge in response to limitations in the capacity of institutions. Community scientists provide valuable support to institutions by acting as “eyes and ears,” augmenting and supporting the activities of government agencies throughout social-ecological systems. We empirically support this framework through a case study of a coastal community in California, USA. By emphasizing the diverse ways community scientists' engage with their communities, our framework provides a foundation for more effective integration of their efforts in environmental research and policy. We also highlight the need for careful consideration of the ethical and practical implications of relying on community scientists to accommodate gaps in institutional capacity. This study advances our understanding of community science and offers broadly applicable insights for improving collaborative approaches to social-ecological challenges across scales and systems.