If you take a picture of a colorful butterfly on vacation and post it on Facebook or photo platforms such as Flickr, you're hardly thinking about science. But precisely such photos could help us to better understand the state of our natural world - and to protect it.
A new study confirms this. Researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and Monash University have analyzed photos of a South Asian butterfly from Flickr and Facebook. The number of documented sightings of this species increased by 35 percent as a result. The study was published in the journal "Conservation Biology".
Everyone can participate - with limits
Not every species can be reliably identified using a cell phone photo. Moths and beetles, for example, are much less common on social platforms and are often difficult to identify. In addition, species can be confused or photos misinterpreted. Professional verification therefore remains necessary. Nevertheless, the researchers see great potential. Prof. Dr. Aletta Bonn from the UFZ, iDiv and the University of Jena emphasizes how important individual observations are "in order to be able to assess rapidly progressing changes in biodiversity in connection with climate change."
Those who want to make a targeted contribution can use apps such as iNaturalist or the German app Flora Incognita. The observations recorded there are fed directly into scientific databases. The study shows: Photos from social media can also make an important contribution to biodiversity research - if checked by experts.
Original publication:
Chowdhury, S., Hawladar, N., Roy, R. C., Capinha, C., Cassey, P., Correia, R. A., Deme, G. G., Di Marco, M., Di Minin, E., Jarić, I., Ladle, R. J., Lenoir, J., Momeny, M., Rinne, J. J., Roll, U., Bonn, A. (2026). Harnessing social media data to track a species range shift: A case study using the tawny coster butterfly. Conservation Biology.
