Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape
Effective conservation relies on comprehensive ecological data, including detailed species occurrences, to track distribution shifts, detect invasive species, and assess wildlife-human interactions. Despite recent technological advancements, environmental and biodiversity monitoring still faces fina...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-12-01
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| Series: | Ecological Informatics |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574954125002870 |
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| author | Pablo Otero Javier Menéndez-Blázquez David March |
| author_facet | Pablo Otero Javier Menéndez-Blázquez David March |
| author_sort | Pablo Otero |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Effective conservation relies on comprehensive ecological data, including detailed species occurrences, to track distribution shifts, detect invasive species, and assess wildlife-human interactions. Despite recent technological advancements, environmental and biodiversity monitoring still faces financial and logistical limitations. Passive citizen science, which gathers data from social media platforms, provides a complementary approach that has proven effective in monitoring plants, insects, coral reefs, birds, recreational fishing, or marine pollution, among others. However, the rapid transformation of established social media platforms, the emergence of new distributed networks, and the rise of misinformation are reshaping the social media landscape and casting uncertainty on the future of this method. In this Viewpoint article, we review the current challenges of passive citizen science and call for strengthening this valuable approach for regional solutions that consider linguistic diversity, multiple data sources, fluctuating user engagement, and the integration of artificial intelligence tools for supervising and classifying images and text. At the policy level, a collaborative effort between platform providers and policymakers is essential to democratize research data access. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-5ab13f8d1e6d4f6181a6be0c6c8ee5fc |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1574-9541 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-12-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecological Informatics |
| spelling | doaj-art-5ab13f8d1e6d4f6181a6be0c6c8ee5fc2025-08-20T05:05:31ZengElsevierEcological Informatics1574-95412025-12-019010327810.1016/j.ecoinf.2025.103278Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscapePablo Otero0Javier Menéndez-Blázquez1David March2Centro Oceanográfico de Vigo, Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO-CSIC), Spain; Corresponding author.Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, University of Valencia, Paterna, SpainCavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, University of Valencia, Paterna, Spain; Centre for Ecology and Conservation, College of Life and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Cornwall, United Kingdom.Effective conservation relies on comprehensive ecological data, including detailed species occurrences, to track distribution shifts, detect invasive species, and assess wildlife-human interactions. Despite recent technological advancements, environmental and biodiversity monitoring still faces financial and logistical limitations. Passive citizen science, which gathers data from social media platforms, provides a complementary approach that has proven effective in monitoring plants, insects, coral reefs, birds, recreational fishing, or marine pollution, among others. However, the rapid transformation of established social media platforms, the emergence of new distributed networks, and the rise of misinformation are reshaping the social media landscape and casting uncertainty on the future of this method. In this Viewpoint article, we review the current challenges of passive citizen science and call for strengthening this valuable approach for regional solutions that consider linguistic diversity, multiple data sources, fluctuating user engagement, and the integration of artificial intelligence tools for supervising and classifying images and text. At the policy level, a collaborative effort between platform providers and policymakers is essential to democratize research data access.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574954125002870EcologyPassive citizen scienceBiodiversitySocial networks |
| spellingShingle | Pablo Otero Javier Menéndez-Blázquez David March Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape Ecological Informatics Ecology Passive citizen science Biodiversity Social networks |
| title | Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape |
| title_full | Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape |
| title_fullStr | Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape |
| title_full_unstemmed | Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape |
| title_short | Challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape |
| title_sort | challenges of passive citizen science in ecology within a shifting social media landscape |
| topic | Ecology Passive citizen science Biodiversity Social networks |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574954125002870 |
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