An integrated approach for cetacean knowledge and conservation in the central Mediterranean Sea using research and social media data sources

Abstract

Sources of data other than those derived from conventional research protocols may contribute valuable information to fill gaps in knowledge about cetacean occurrences and diversity in a given area and help address conservation issues. The performance of a method to examine cetacean communities based on presence records systematically derived from shared photographs and videos posted by boaters and maritime operators on social media (e.g. YouTube and Facebook) combined with patchy distributed visual/acoustic data collected by researchers has been evaluated. Records (N = 1,274) gathered over a 10‐year period (2008–2017) have been used to obtain insights into species' presence and habitat selection in a scattered study area of the central Mediterranean Sea (Italy). The effectiveness of the method, practical and theoretical advantages, limitations, and challenges of using data originated from social media for research and conservation purposes are discussed. Seven out of the eight cetacean species regularly residing in the Mediterranean have been reported in the area, with different relative densities. Maximum entropy modelling techniques have been applied to the datasets derived from (a) social media, (b) research surveys, and (c) the combination of the two, using six fixed variables as proxies for cetacean presence. Distance from the coast and depth emerged as the main variables predicting encounters, with specificities related to the ecology of the species. The approach was reliable enough to obtain broad‐scale, baseline information on cetacean communities in the region, on the basis of which initial conservation recommendations and future research programmes can be proposed. With the increasing need for studying whale and dolphin population ecology coming from national/international directives, support from citizens to aid research may act as a practical, inexpensive solution to gathering extensive spatial–temporal data for regional‐scale monitoring and for the development of management priorities.

Trends in summer presence of fin whales in the Western Mediterranean Sea Region: new insights from a long-term monitoring program

“…The species is not absent from the South Eastern Pelagos sub-area, where rare but still yearly regular sightings were recorded. Specifically, localized hot-spots are known to occur in this basin during particular time of the year ( Canese et al, 2006 ; Pace et al, 2019 ) while, in general, the area can be seen as a traveling area among different sub-areas. The FLT Med Network is the first and only recurring monitoring of this sub-area.…”

Online media reveals a global problem of discarded containers as deadly traps for animals

“…Importantly, social media plays an indispensable role in supplying scientific data related to the protection of nature and the impact of people on the environment 33 , 34 . For instance, social media has been used to assess the influence of human-impacted habitats on collisions between primates and vehicles 48 , for the monitoring of cetaceans in the central Mediterranean 49 , for mapping the distribution of pollinators and flowering plants in Australia 70 , and as a method of tracking global illegal wildlife trade 71 , 72 .…”

“…Data obtained from the Internet have been used for many years and in many fields of science, especially social sciences such as psychology, sociology or human behavior [38][39][40] . They are also increasingly used in natural sciences, including animal behavior 37,41 , environmental protection 42 , wildlife monitoring 43 , human-animal and/or nature interaction [44][45][46] , and conservation biology [47][48][49] .…”

Underwater Visual Records of Marine Megafauna Around Offshore Anthropogenic Structures

“…Tapping into these surveys can reduce environmental disturbance from conducting duplicate surveys (Jones, 2009). To address major knowledge gaps and conservation challenges, it has been suggested recently to take advantage of ever-increasing supply of publicly available, open-source data on social media platforms to supplement conventional research protocols (Klemann-Junior et al, 2017;McKinley et al, 2017;Mancini et al, 2019;Pace et al, 2019;Parton et al, 2019). This has been demonstrated to be a reliable tool for obtaining cetacean-distribution data (Hann et al, 2018;Pace et al, 2019); therefore, collecting ROV data from international public-domain platforms can aid research purposes on a global scale.…”