The random information posted online could possibly be used to generate details about biodiversity and its conservation.
“I feel it’s quite amazing that images and comments that folks post online will be used to infer changes on biodiversity,” says Dr. Andrea Soriano-Redondo, the lead-author of a brand new article published within the journal Plos Biology and a researcher on the Helsinki Lab of Interdisciplinary Conservation Science on the University of Helsinki.
Scientists from the University of Helsinki along with colleagues from other universities and institutions world wide propose a technique for integrating online digital data from media platforms to enhance monitoring efforts to assist address the worldwide biodiversity crisis in light of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
“Online digital data, comparable to social media data, will be used to strengthen existing assessments of the status and trends of biodiversity, the pressures upon it, and the conservation solutions being implemented, in addition to to generate novel insights about human-nature interactions,” says Dr. Andrea Soriano-Redondo.
“Probably the most common sources of online biodiversity data include web pages, news media, social media, image- and video-sharing platforms, and digital books and encyclopedias. These data, for instance geolocated distribution data, will be filtered and processed by researchers to focus on specific research questions and are increasingly getting used to explore ecological processes and to analyze the distribution, spatiotemporal trends, phenology, ecological interactions, or behavior of species or assemblages and their drivers of change,” she continues.
Data generated through the framework in near real-time could possibly be constantly integrated with other independently collected biodiversity datasets and used for real-time applications.
“Data relevant to assessment of species extinction or ecosystem collapse risk, for instance, could possibly be mobilized into the workflows for generating the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and Red List of Ecosystems,” says Dr. Thomas Brooks, chief scientist of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and a co-author within the article.
“Other data on sites of worldwide significance for the persistence of biodiversity could possibly be served to the suitable national coordination groups to strengthen their efforts in identifying Key Biodiversity Areas,” he continues.
Data on the illegal wildlife trade may be integrated with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Trade Database or the Trade Records Evaluation of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC) open-source wildlife seizure and incident data.
Online digital data will also be used to explore human-nature interactions from multiple perspectives.
“We have now successfully used social media data to discover instances of illegal wildlife trade. There may be great potential to make use of these data to supply novel insights into human-nature interactions and the way they shape, each positively and negatively, biodiversity conservation,” says Professor Enrico Di Minin, senior co-author within the article, from the University of Helsinki.
“The mandatory technology to implement the work is accessible, but it’s going to require harnessing expertise from multiple sectors and academic disciplines, in addition to the collaboration of digital media corporations. Most significantly we’d like to make sure full access to the information as to maximise its full potential to assist address the worldwide biodiversity crisis and other sustainability challenges,” he continues.
