Citizen science projects have the potential to advance science by increasing the volume and variety of data, as well as innovation. Yet this potential has not been fully realized, in part because citizen science data are typically not widely shared and reused. To address this and related challenges, we built CitSci.org (see www.citsci.org), a customizable platform that allows users to collect and generate diverse datasets. We hope that CitSci.org will ultimately increase discoverability and confidence in citizen science observations, encouraging scientists to use such data in their own scientific research.

Involving the public in scientific discovery offers opportunities for engagement, learning, participation, and action. Since its launch in 2007, the CitSci.org platform has supported hundreds of community-driven citizen science projects involving thousands of participants who have generated close to a million scientific measurements around the world. Members using CitSci.org follow their curiosities and concerns to develop, lead, or simply participate in research projects. While professional scientists are trained to make ethical determinations related to the collection of, access to, and use of information, citizen scientists and practitioners may be less aware of such issues and more likely to become involved in ethical dilemmas. In this era of big and open data, where data sharing is encouraged and open science is promoted, privacy and openness considerations can often be overlooked. Platforms that support the collection, use, and sharing of data and personal information need to consider their responsibility to protect the rights to and ownership of data, the provision of protection options for data and members, and at the same time provide options for openness. This requires critically considering both intended and unintended consequences of the use of platforms, data, and volunteer information. Here, we use our journey developing CitSci.org to argue that incorporating customization into platforms through flexible design options for project managers shifts the decision-making from top-down to bottom-up and allows project design to be more responsive to goals. To protect both people and data, we developed-and continue to improve-options that support various levels of "open" and "closed" access permissions for data and membership participation. These options support diverse governance styles that are responsive to data uses, traditional and indigenous knowledge sensitivities, intellectual property rights, personally identifiable information concerns, volunteer preferences, and sensitive data protections. We present a typology for citizen science openness choices, their ethical considerations, and strategies that we are actively putting into practice to expand privacy options and governance models based on the unique needs of individual projects using our platform.

Rangelands are the dominant land use across a broad swath of central North America where they span a wide gradient, from 900 mm, in mean annual precipitation. Substantial efforts have examined temporal and spatial variation in aboveground net primary production (ANPP) to precipitation (PPT) across this gradient. In contrast, net secondary productivity (NSP, e.g., primary consumer production) has not been evaluated analogously. However, livestock production, which is a form of NSP or primary consumer production supported by primary production, is the dominant non‐cultivated land use and an integral economic driver in these regions. Here, we used long‐term (mean length = 19 years) ANPP and NSP data from six research sites across the Central Great Plains with a history of a conservative stocking to determine resource (i.e., PPT)–productivity relationships, NSP sensitivities to dry‐year precipitation, and regional trophic efficiencies (e.g., NSP:ANPP ratio). PPT–ANPP relationships were linear for both temporal (site‐based) and spatial (among site) gradients. The spatial PPT–NSP model revealed that PPT mediated a saturating relationship for NSP as sites became more mesic, a finding that contrasts with many plant‐based PPT–ANPP relationships. A saturating response to high growing‐season precipitation suggests biogeochemical rather than vegetation growth constraints may govern NSP (i.e., large herbivore production). Differential sensitivity in NSP to dry years demonstrated that the primary consumer production response heightened as sites became more xeric. Although sensitivity generally decreased with increasing precipitation as predicted from known PPT–ANPP relationships, evidence suggests that the dominant species' identity and traits influenced secondary production efficiency. Non‐native northern mixed‐grass prairie was outperformed by native Central Great Plains rangeland in sensitivity to dry years and efficiency in converting ANPP to NSP. A more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms leading to differences in producer and consumer responses will require multisite experiments to assess biotic and abiotic determinants of multi‐trophic level efficiency and sensitivity.