What is Digital Ecology?

What is digital ecology?

Various names have been used to describe ecological research which is principally computer or data based, or to describe wildlife biologists or ecologists who principally work with data, rather than who are active in the field including  computational biology, ecoinformatics and iEcology. Digital Ecology is another and a more modern interpretation, and encompasses the use of technology in the biology and ecological science.

Defining digital ecology

A definition of digital ecology could be:

The use of technology in the study of the natural world and environmental sciences. It encompasses technologies that help in the collection, analysis and sharing of information and data among those scientists learning about the environment and living organisms.

Digital ecology is important because it offers new tools and methods to study the natural world and natural processes. The natural world is complex, and modern methods of data analysis provide new methods to study this complexity.

What topics does digital ecology include?

• Citizen science

• Media analysis of ecological topics

• Study of internet search data and social media use in ecology

• Bio-loggers and trackers

• Drones

• Use of data science and AI in ecology

What are the advantages of digital ecology? 

There are many advantages:

• Widening participation: Today we can all become biologists! The increasingly open nature of data, and the ability of the data science tools to be used by everyone means all can do research. Everyone can access data and do research on it. So you can be a scientist studying the African Savannah, without actually ever being there. An example is provided by the website iNaturalist, which reached 50 million submissions, from over 1.2 million participants, in 2020 (Californian Institute of Science, 2020). The gender, racial, and socioeconomic barriers which might traditionally stop people taking part in our sciences are less a problem in the data science era.

• Increases geographical equality: Digital methods offer a further chance to ensure that ecological research and conservation remains in the hands of those people living locally. Today, knowledge is available throughout the world, as long as you have an Internet connection. Not only is it more desirable to have those who actually live in a location study the biodiversity present where they live, but it means ecology will get better.

• More research, on more topics: A greater range, depth and amount of research is possible. The growing availability of digitally based techniques means that research that previously took many years to perform can be done much quicker and easier.  Results can be analyzed far quicker and new insights gained which were previously not possible. It can also be argued that there is greater transfer of ideas across disciplines. For example, many econometric techniques, conceived to study issues in economics, have been utilized for biology. 

• Accessibility and participation: Related to increasing equality, today everyone can be a scientist. Formerly, an expert in the environmental sciences was found in an elite university, remote from society and remote from most people in society. But today's technology means that not only can such people be more easily contactable, visible in society, but also that there is far greater chance of you becoming one. In fact digital technologies are democratizing ecology. A student sat at home behind a computer is as capable of producing high quality scientific research as a well funded professor in an elite university.

• Everyone has access to knowledge: The Internet now means that information and knowledge is more widely available than ever before. Formerly scientific knowledge was concentrated among academic institutions such as research institutes or universities. Today everyone has the potential to learn about our natural world, this can only be a good thing.
  
  

• Technology makes people independent natural historians: People don't need scientists to interact with wildlife (Benson, 2010). Formerly, one could argue that what the majority of people knew about the natural world came to them from various natural history programs on the television. What people knew depended on what they were shown. But today people can choose themselves what they want to see, watch and learn about. People can learn for themselves! Technology has enabled people to become independent observers of the natural world.
  
  

If you liked this sample, and would like to read more please see my book Digital Ecology: How technology is changing the ecological and wildlife sciences. by Mark David Walker. Available at Amazon.

Please see my other websites on Digital Health , online teaching and on Digital Learning