Obstacles and Opportunities of Using a Mobile App for Marine Mammal Research

Abstract

Abstract:This study investigates the use of a mobile application, Whale mAPP, as a citizen science tool for collecting marine mammal sighting data. In just over three months, 1261 marine mammal sightings were observed and recorded by 39 citizen scientists in Southeast Alaska. The resulting data, along with a preliminary and post-Whale mAPP questionnaires, were used to evaluate the tool's scientific, educational, and engagement feasibility. A comparison of Whale mAPP Steller sea lion distribution data to a scientific dataset were comparable (91% overlap) given a high enough sample size (n = 73) and dense spatial coverage. In addition, after using Whale mAPP for two weeks, citizen scientists improved their marine mammal identification skills and self-initiated further learning, representing preliminary steps in developing an engaging citizen science project. While the app experienced high initial enthusiasm, maintaining prolonged commitment represents one of the fundamental challenges for this project. Increasing participation with targeted recruitment and sustained communication will help combat the limitations of sample size and spatial coverage. Overall, this study emphasizes the importance of early evaluation of the educational and scientific outcomes of a citizen science project, so that limitations are recognized and reduced.

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

“…The proposed scheme uses two global data sources, namely FB and YT, which are freely accessible and available online, making the method attractive for large‐scale assessments. With increasing requests to study whale and dolphin population ecology coming from national and international directives, support from citizens to aid research may act as a practical, inexpensive solution to gathering extensive spatial and temporal data for regional‐scale population monitoring and for the development of management priorities (Braulik et al, ; Hann et al, ). The information obtained from social media includes potential limitations, biases, and errors that can reduce its scientific benefits, and these need to be accounted for when utilizing such a methodology.…”

“…Producing robust baseline data on cetacean communities at a wide spatial scale is a critical first step to recognizing threats and prioritizing species/sites that may necessitate conservation actions (Pace, Mussi, Gordon, & Würtz, ). This kind of information is of fundamental interest for the development of management priorities (Braulik et al, ; Hann et al, ), whose aim should be to preserve the most favourable areas for cetaceans and to enable these species to be included in global and regional initiatives, such as IMMAs and MPAs. For example, the central Tyrrhenian Sea was identified as a candidate IMMA in the Mediterranean (https://www.marinemammalhabitat.org/imma-eatlas/), and is waiting for further evidence to qualify as an IMMA.…”

“…By tracking photographs and videos posted on platforms such as YT and FB from boaters, maritime tourists, divers, sea lovers, and professionals, potentially valuable information on cetacean species can be extracted (Giovos et al, ), providing much larger datasets than could be collected by traditional research alone. Although this approach can provide a substantial array of scientific and conservation benefits, limitations such as data fragmentation and over‐reporting in high‐use areas (Bird et al, ) should be properly evaluated and potential results interpreted with caution (Hann, Stelle, Szabo, & Torres, ).…”

Underwater Visual Records of Marine Megafauna Around Offshore Anthropogenic Structures

“…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. There are additional caveats on public data, e.g., only interesting/exciting sections are posted which makes effort impossible to determined.…”

Geoinformatics in Citizen Science

“…This special issue received a total of 13 submitted papers with 10 papers accepted [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. The authors' affiliations are distributed in the following countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States.…”