iParasitology: Mining the Internet to Test Parasitological Hypotheses

Viewing the rare through public lenses: insights into dead calf carrying and other thanatological responses in Asian elephants using YouTube videos

“…Jarić et al [ 34 ] introduced a new approach termed ‘iEcology’, proposing that digital data available on social media sites can be an important supplement for studying multiple topics in animal behavioural ecology from temporal and spatial perspectives. The repository of videos uploaded onto one digital platform, YouTube, provides a useful source of information for surveying an array of topics related to wildlife ecology and conservation, including animal behaviour [ 36 , 38 ], threats related to biodiversity [ 40 , 72 , 73 ], attitudes towards conservation [ 74 , 75 ] and hypothesis testing [ 76 ]. In addition, these videos promote public engagement in science.…”

The people vs science: can passively crowdsourced internet data shed light on host–parasite interactions?

“…Similarly, epidemiologists have used internet data to successfully track disease outbreaks in space and time (Carneiro and Mylonakis, 2009; Ning et al ., 2019; Aiello et al ., 2020). However, it is only recently, and in a still limited number of cases, that internet data have been harnessed to test hypotheses in general parasitology, an approach referred to as iParasitology (Poulin et al ., 2021). Our study demonstrates its potential to inform host–parasite interactions.…”

“…Our results suggest that it can do that. There are limitations to the use of data passively generated by the public and available on the internet (see Poulin et al ., 2021). However, for visible parasites likely to arouse curiosity, such as ectoparasitic copepods and isopods on fish, or those that induce noticeable changes in host appearance, such as cataract-inducing diplostomid trematodes in freshwater fish (Karvonen et al ., 2004), members of the public can act as reliable recorders of parasite occurrence.…”

“…As a rule, comprehensive datasets used to address global-scale questions in parasite ecology or biogeography are assembled from information published in the scientific literature (see Morand and Krasnov, 2010). However, the internet may provide a vast, yet mostly untapped alternative source of data (Jarić et al ., 2020; Poulin et al ., 2021). Each query made through an internet search engine like Google, and each image uploaded to the internet, represents a record of a real-world observation.…”

“…However, data already stored on the internet and not solicited by scientists for a specific purpose also hold huge potential. Recently, the use of internet data for parasitological research, or iParasitology (Poulin et al ., 2021), has emerged as an alternative to traditional research based on primary data acquired by scientists. Because internet data based on search activity and image uploads are akin to undirected citizen science, or passive crowdsourcing, it must be validated against rigorous scientific data to confirm whether it captures real-world patterns without biases.…”