A protocol for harvesting biodiversity data from Facebook

Shawan Chowdhury, Sultan Ahmed, Shofiul Alam, Corey T. Callaghan, Priyanka Das, Moreno Di Marco, Enrico Di Minin, Ivan Jarić, Mahzabin Muzahid Labi, Md Rokonuzzaman, Uri Roll, Valerio Sbragaglia, Asma Siddika, Aletta Bonn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

The expanding use of community science platforms has led to an exponential increase in biodiversity data in global repositories. Yet, understanding of species distributions remains patchy. Biodiversity data from social media can potentially reduce the global biodiversity knowledge gap. However, practical guidelines and standardized methods for harvesting such data are nonexistent. Following data privacy and protection safeguards, we devised a standardized method for extracting species distribution records from Facebook groups that allow access to their data. It involves 3 steps: group selection, data extraction, and georeferencing the record location. We present how to structure keywords, search for species photographs, and georeference localities for such records. We further highlight some challenges users might face when extracting species distribution data from Facebook and suggest solutions. Following our proposed framework, we present a case study on Bangladesh's biodiversity—a tropical megadiverse South Asian country. We scraped nearly 45,000 unique georeferenced records across 967 species and found a median of 27 records per species. About 12% of the distribution data were for threatened species, representing 27% of all species. We also obtained data for 56 DataDeficient species for Bangladesh. If carefully harvested, social media data can significantly reduce global biodiversity knowledge gaps. Consequently, developing an automated tool to extract and interpret social media biodiversity data is a research priority.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere14257
JournalConservation Biology
Volume38
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2024

Keywords

  • Bangladesh
  • Facebook
  • Wallacean shortfall
  • ciencia ciudadana
  • citizen science
  • colaboración masiva
  • crowdsourcing
  • déficit wallaceano
  • iEcology
  • megadiverse countries
  • países megadiversos
  • redes sociales
  • social media
  • tropics
  • trópicos

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Ecology
  • Nature and Landscape Conservation

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