Social media can help track species as climate changes

The "range" inhabited by many species is shifting, and this is mostly tracked by formal monitoring schemes and surveys -- but these methods may struggle to spot rapid changes, and sometimes overlook urban areas.

The new study -- led by the University of Exeter -- examined posts about Jersey tiger moths on Instagram and Flickr.

Instagram posts revealed that the moths are unexpectedly common in towns and cities, and -- more importantly -- the findings demonstrate how social media can be used to monitor our fast-changing natural world.

"Wildlife surveys tend to be done in rural areas, so their information doesn't always reflect the vital importance of towns and cities," said Nile Stephenson, who led the study during a masters in Evolution, Behaviour and Ecology at Exeter.

"Urban parks and gardens provide diverse habitats where species like the Jersey tiger moth can thrive.

"By accounting for biases and gaps in the data, we have developed a method that could be widely used to track many species -- especially those that share our urban environments."

Jersey tiger moths are found across much of Europe, and the researchers scoured social media for posts about them.

"Our study shows that plenty of people in towns and cities are interested in wildlife, which has the potential to increase connectedness to nature," said Stephenson, now at the University of Cambridge.

"We also found some people who are very interested in wildlife and photography, who post images of a wide range of wildlife they see. This provides reservoirs of data that scientists can use."

Stephenson said the public can also help by posting in places such as iNaturalist and iRecord, as information from these is already used in research.

The team highlighted limitations of using social media, saying it can only be used to complement -- not replace -- traditional monitoring.

"Because social media is so prone to trends, we would expect to see bias -- such as more sightings of species that are being widely talked about," Stephenson said.

"However, we can turn that into a positive. For example, we could improve monitoring of invasive species by making trends around recording sightings."

The study was funded by Research England.