Fig 1.
Examples of aquatic culturomics and iEcology studies.
(A) Social engagement of marine recreational anglers and spearfishers targeting common dentex (Dentex dentex), an iconic species for Mediterranean fisheries, based on videos posted on YouTube [12]; upper photo—common dentex, lower photo—spearfisher. (B) Potential aquatic flagship species identified based on their popularity (relative internet search frequency) [59]; presented are top-ranked marine (killer whale, Orcinus orca, and great hammerhead, Sphyrna mokarran) and freshwater species (hippopotamus, Hippopotamus amphibius, and platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus). (C) Mapping of cultural ecosystem service hotspots in a marine protected area, based on social media photographs [11]. (D) Conceptual landscape perception map, based on statistical relationships between activities, values, and features coded from landscape images and captions on Instagram, from the proposed headpond area of the now-approved Site C dam, Peace River, British Columbia, Canada [6,68]. See the supporting information (S1 Text) for image attributions.
Fig 2.
Overview of challenges and biases associated with conservation culturomics and iEcology research, divided into 5 groups: sociocultural aspects, accessibility issues, geographic factors, issues related to data sources, and ethical issues.
It should be noted that some of the listed issues also represent key research subjects for the field of culturomics.