IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v4y2012i2p551-562d17948.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crowd Sourcing for Conservation: Web 2.0 a Powerful Tool for Biologists

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Newell

    (School of Environment, Science and Management, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia)

  • Margaret M. Pembroke

    (Southern Cross University Library, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia)

  • William E. Boyd

    (School of Environment, Science and Management, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia)

Abstract

The advent and adoption of Web 2.0 technologies offers a powerful approach to enhancing the capture of information in natural resource ecology, notably community knowledge of species distributions. Such information has previously been collected using, for example, postal surveys; these are typically inefficient, with low response rates, high costs, and requiring respondents to be spatially literate. Here we describe an example, using the Google Maps Application Programming Interface, to discuss the opportunities such tools provide to conservation biology. Toad Tracker was created as a prototype to demonstrate the utility of this technology to document the distribution of an invasive vertebrate pest species, the cane toad, within Australia. While the technological aspects of this tool are satisfactory, manager resistance towards its use raises issues around the public nature of the technology, the collaborative (non-expert) role in data collection, and data ownership. We conclude in suggesting that, for such tools to be accepted by non-innovation adopters, work is required on both the technological aspects and, importantly, a cultural change is required to create an environment of acceptance of the shifting relationship between authority, expertise and knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Newell & Margaret M. Pembroke & William E. Boyd, 2012. "Crowd Sourcing for Conservation: Web 2.0 a Powerful Tool for Biologists," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-12, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:4:y:2012:i:2:p:551-562:d:17948
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/4/2/551/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/4/2/551/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin L. Phillips & Gregory P. Brown & Jonathan K. Webb & Richard Shine, 2006. "Invasion and the evolution of speed in toads," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7078), pages 803-803, February.
    2. Mark Graham, 2010. "Neogeography And The Palimpsests Of Place: Web 2.0 And The Construction Of A Virtual Earth," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 101(4), pages 422-436, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Estavoyer, Maxime & François, Olivier, 2022. "Theoretical analysis of principal components in an umbrella model of intraspecific evolution," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 11-21.
    2. Bryan T Weinstein & Maxim O Lavrentovich & Wolfram Möbius & Andrew W Murray & David R Nelson, 2017. "Genetic drift and selection in many-allele range expansions," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-31, December.
    3. Ahmed Nafidi & Ghizlane Moutabir & Ramón Gutiérrez-Sánchez & Eva Ramos-Ábalos, 2020. "Stochastic Square of the Brennan-Schwartz Diffusion Process: Statistical Computation and Application," Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 455-476, June.
    4. Hallatschek, Oskar & Nelson, David R., 2008. "Gene surfing in expanding populations," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 158-170.
    5. David J Marshall & Lynn A Staeheli & Dima Smaira & Konstantin Kastrissianakis, 2017. "Narrating palimpsestic spaces," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(5), pages 1163-1180, May.
    6. Godfrey Yeung & Kim Leng Ang, 2016. "Online Fashion Retailing and Retail Geography: The Blogshop Phenomenon in Singapore," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 107(1), pages 81-99, February.
    7. Kuparinen, Anna & Schurr, Frank M., 2007. "A flexible modelling framework linking the spatio-temporal dynamics of plant genotypes and populations: Application to gene flow from transgenic forests," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 202(3), pages 476-486.
    8. Cécile Berthouly-Salazar & Berndt J van Rensburg & Johannes J Le Roux & Bettine J van Vuuren & Cang Hui, 2012. "Spatial Sorting Drives Morphological Variation in the Invasive Bird, Acridotheris tristis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-9, May.
    9. Wang, Ching-Hao & Matin, Sakib & George, Ashish B. & Korolev, Kirill S., 2019. "Pinned, locked, pushed, and pulled traveling waves in structured environments," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 102-119.
    10. Jennifer Atchison, 2015. "Experiments in co-existence: the science and practices of biocontrol in invasive species management," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(8), pages 1697-1712, August.
    11. Anne Marel Hilbers & Frans J. Sijtsma & Tim Busscher & Jos Arts, 2022. "Identifying Citizens' Place Values for Integrated Planning of Road Infrastructure Projects," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(1), pages 35-56, February.
    12. Mirrahimi, Sepideh & Raoul, Gaël, 2013. "Dynamics of sexual populations structured by a space variable and a phenotypical trait," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 87-103.
    13. Xie, Youxiang & Wang, Linjun & Deng, Qicheng & Wu, Zhengjia, 2017. "The dynamics of an impulsive predator–prey model with communicable disease in the prey species only," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 292(C), pages 320-335.
    14. Balázs Lengyel & Ákos Jakobi, 2016. "Online Social Networks, Location, and the Dual Effect of Distance from the Centre," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 107(3), pages 298-315, July.
    15. Justin M J Travis & Stephen C F Palmer & Steven Coyne & Alexandre Millon & Xavier Lambin, 2013. "Evolution of Predator Dispersal in Relation to Spatio-Temporal Prey Dynamics: How Not to Get Stuck in the Wrong Place!," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-9, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:4:y:2012:i:2:p:551-562:d:17948. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.