Leveraging social media and other online data to study animal behavior
The widespread sharing of information on the Internet has given rise to ecological studies that use data from digital sources including digitized museum records and social media posts. Most of these studies have focused on understanding species occurrences and distributions. In this essay, we argue that data from digital sources also offer many opportunities to study animal behavior including long-term and large-scale comparisons within and between species. Following Nikko Tinbergen's classical roadmap for behavioral investigation, we show how using videos, photos, text, and audio posted on social media and other digital platforms can shed new light on known behaviors, particularly in a changing world, and lead to the discovery of new ones.
Authors
- Oded Berger‐Tal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7396-456X)
- Jorge S. Gutiérrez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8459-3162)
- Valerio Sbragaglia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4775-7049)
- Łukasz Dylewski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1370-7625)
- Ivan Jarić (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2185-297X)
- Daniel T. Blumstein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5793-9244)
- Peter Mikula (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2731-9105)
- Andrea Soriano‐Redondo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0728-730X)
- Reut Vardi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2846-649X)
- Zuzanna Jagiełło (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1606-2612)
Institutions
- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (IL)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- University of Lisbon (PT)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
- Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZ)
- AgroParisTech (FR)
- Université Paris-Saclay (FR)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Ecologie, Société, Evolution (FR)
- Institute for Advanced Study (DE)
- Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Institut de Ciències del Mar (ES)
- University of Warsaw (PL)
- University of Life Sciences in Poznań (PL)
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
- Universidad de Extremadura (ES)
Publication Details
- Journal
- PLoS Biology
- Published
- 2024-08-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002793
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Animal and Plant Science Education
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.79
Funders
- Grantová Agentura České Republiky
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
- Institute for Advanced Study, Technische Universität München