2024 Publications
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Chen Y, Fuller RA, Lee TM & Hua F (2024) Disproportionate low-elevation forest loss in over 65% of the world’s mountains calls for targeted conservation. One Earth, 7, 1833-1845.
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Mountains are global biodiversity hotspots yet are widely threatened by forest loss. For many mountains, forest loss seems to concentrate at the more accessible lower elevations. This pattern—if confirmed—means widespread loss and scarcity of lower-elevation forest habitat, which can severely threaten species relying on such habitat and even negatively affect high-elevation species. However, no study has robustly assessed the elevational patterns of forest loss for mountains at the global scale, limited by the fact that forest loss identified from land-cover maps can be confounded by the natural absence of forest. We fill this gap with a global analysis of all 769 mountains in the world’s forested ecoregions, explicitly distinguishing forest loss from the natural absence of forest. By demonstrating disproportionate low-elevation forest loss for >65% of the mountains assessed, our study calls for targeted forest protection and restoration at lower elevations for mountains worldwide.
Submitted to PNAS on 10 Nov 2022. Desk rejection on 16 Nov; submitted to Nature Ecology and Evolution in Dec 2022; rejected after review 27 Feb 2023; submitted a revised version to One Earth on 4 Aug 2023; further revision requested; resubmitted on 13 Feb 2024; further revision required; resubmitted on 9 Jun 2024; accepted 12 Jul 2024.
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Kindler GS, Kusmanoff AM, Kearney S, Ward M, Fuller RA, Lloyd TJ, Bekessy SA, Gregg EA, Stewart R & Watson JEM (2024) Motivating government on threatened species through electoral systems. Conservation Science and Practice, 6, e13206.
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Many of the proposed solutions to the global biodiversity crisis rely on national governments to act. The conservation movement needs to motivate governments or face an ongoing extinction crisis. Here we explore how linking biodiversity to electoral systems may assist in motivating government action. Using Australia as a case study, we analyze the intersection of 151 electoral districts and 1651 threatened species. We show all districts contain at least 14 threatened species. Half of the species analyzed (n = 801, 49%) are confined to one district (n = 44), with 1345 (81%) species intersecting with less than five. This geographical information shows that alongside local social and economic issues, the threatened species crisis can be made relevant to all Australian elected representatives. Locally relevant information can encourage integration of species needs into the scope of political representation. As such, linking biodiversity to political geography offers a potential pathway to creating transformative change.
Submitted to Conservation Letters on 14 Nov 2022; desk rejected on 16th Jan; Submitted to Conservation Biology on 18th Jan 2023; editorial reject and resubmit decision on 30 Jan 2023; resubmitted on 15 Feb 2023; rejected 2 May 2023; submitted to Conservation Science and Practice on 3 Aug 2023; revision requested 19 Jan 2024; resubmitted 19 Mar 2024; further revisions requested; resubmitted 28 Jun 2024; accepted 18 Jul 2024.
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Oh RRY, Fuller RA, Peters B, Dean AJ, Pachana NA, Callaghan CT, Sockhill NJ, Bonn A & Suarez-Castro AF (2024) Enhancing the health and wellbeing benefits of biodiversity citizen science. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 12, 1444161.
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Engagement in biodiversity citizen science initiatives can confer health and wellbeing benefits to individuals and communities. Yet, few biodiversity citizen science initiatives are explicitly planned to optimize health and wellbeing as a potential co-benefit, leading to missed opportunities for biodiversity conservation and human health. In this perspective, we use a dose-response approach to discuss the components that determine how engagement in biodiversity citizen science initiatives map onto opportunities to foster health and wellbeing benefits. We considered aspects related to the duration and frequency of contact with nature, and the intensity of interactions with nature and between individuals to highlight the different health benefits across the variety of citizen science initiatives. To illustrate these aspects, we use a sample of 95 citizen science initiatives from seven English and non-English-speaking countries and show how careful project design can increase the potential to confer health and wellbeing benefits to participants. We conclude with considerations on how to enhance the health and wellbeing benefits from citizen science initiatives, and propose potential research avenues to assess synergies and trade-offs between benefits to biodiversity and human health from these initiatives.
Submitted to Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment on 14 Aug 2023; editor reject and resubmit decision; resubmitted on 2 Feb 2024; rejected 20 May 2024; submitted to Science of the Total Environment on 27 May 2024; desk rejection; submitted to Biological Conservation on 28 May 2024; desk rejection; submitted to Frontiers in Environmental Science on 5 Jun 2024; revision requested 21 Jun 2024; resubmitted 26 Jul 2024; accepted 5 Aug 2024.
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Suarez-Castro AF, Oh RRY, Tulloch AIT, Bonn A, Fuller RA & Rhodes JR (2024) Landscape structure influences the spatial distribution of urban bird attractiveness. Landscape Ecology, 39, 149.
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Landscape change affects biological diversity and the distribution of species traits related to spiritual, educational, and recreational benefits people derive from nature. These traits are associated with color, song and behavioral characteristics that influence people's perceptions of how attractive an assemblage is. However, the environmental variables that affect the spatial distribution of traits related to the attractiveness of biological diversity remain unexplored.
We tested how landscape structure influences patterns of perceived bird attractiveness (trait diversity associated with colorfulness, behavioral and song categories) across an urbanization gradient.
We used data from standardized surveys of birds and landscapes within 42 landscape units of 1km2 across the city of Brisbane in eastern Australia. We used structural equation modeling to test effects of landscape composition (built infrastructure, percentage of tree cover) and landscape configuration (fragmentation of tree cover) on mean bird community attractiveness. Relationships between individual traits and landscape structure were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression models.
Our analysis across 82 bird species shows that the relative amount of built infrastructure in a landscape interacts with fragmentation to reduce the overall attractiveness of the landscape’s bird assemblage. However, built areas can exhibit high overall bird attractiveness where there is (1) reduced fragmentation and (2) increased diversity of vegetation structure that provides key habitats for many colorful species with a high diversity of calls. Relationships between bird attractiveness and landscape structure change when they are analyzed at the guild level (insectivores vs frugivores/nectarivores). In addition, body size moderates the effects of landscape structure on song complexity, personality, and color.
Small bodied, colorful and melodious species are negatively affected by built infrastructure and fragmentation. By learning how habitat loss and fragmentation affect the distribution of species-rich, attractive bird assemblages, our findings can inform how urban landscapes might be structured to increase people’s connection with nature.
Submitted to Landscape Ecology on 1 Feb 2024; revision requested 13 Apr 2024; resubmitted 4 Jun 2024; further revision requested 22 Jun 2024; accepted 20 Jul 2024
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Lin M-M, Fuller RA, Gibson L, Chen Y & Choi C-Y (2024) Conservation-oriented management benefits the Black-faced Spoonbill, an endangered migratory waterbird. Global Ecology and Conservation, 54, e03077.
Active conservation management is crucial for maintaining and recovering populations of threatened species. Yet, there are remarkably few studies quantifying the benefits of conservation management and comparing ecological and anthropogenic influences on populations. We investigate these issues using the Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor as a case study. This species is an endangered migratory waterbird that garnered significant conservation attention along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Its global population has shown an upward trend recently, yet the speed of recovery has varied spatially. Understanding the species’ occurrence across wintering sites and the factors driving the geographical variation in recovery is vital for examining the benefits of management. In winter 2021–2022, we surveyed the occurrence and abundance of Black-faced Spoonbills and gathered data on environmental conditions across six important wintering sites in Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. Our results indicated a preference for larger wetlands with water depths of 10–20 cm. Birds were more likely to be present in wetlands receiving conservation management interventions. Wetlands with vegetated bunds and fewer artificial materials tended to attract larger flocks. The contribution of wetland size and conservation management aimed at increasing spoonbill abundance varied across regions, with a more significant positive effect of conservation management observed in Taiwan. Our results serve as a valuable reference for regional conservation planning and wetland management in wintering areas, aiding their long-term conservation. In line with this, we recommend increased conservation management efforts informed by our findings, particularly in regions with relatively slow recovery rates.
Submitted to Global Ecology and Conservation on 24 Mar 2024; revision requested on 3 May 2024; resubmitted on 24 May 2024; accepted 3 Jul 2024
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Bird JP, Fuller RA & Shaw JD (2024) Patterns of recovery in extant and extirpated seabirds after the world’s largest multipredator eradication. Conservation Biology, 38, e14239.
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Eradicating invasive predators from islands can result in substantial recovery of seabirds, but the mechanisms that drive population changes remain poorly understood. Meta-analyses have recently revealed that immigration is surprisingly important to the recovery of philopatric seabirds, but it is not known whether dispersal and philopatry interact predictably to determine rates of population growth and changes of distribution. We used whole-island surveys and long-term monitoring plots to study the abundance, distribution, and trends of 4 burrowing seabird species on Macquarie Island, Australia, to examine the legacy impacts of invasive species and ongoing responses to the world's largest eradication of multiple species of vertebrates. Wekas (Gallirallus australis) were eradicated in 1988; cats (Felis catus) in 2001; and rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), black rats (Rattus rattus), and mice (Mus mus) in 2011–2014. We compared surveys from 1976–1979 and 2017–2018 and monitoring from the 1990s and 2000s onward. Antarctic prions (Pachyptila desolata) and white-headed petrels (Pterodroma lessonii) increased ∼1% per year. Blue petrels (Halobaena caerulea) and gray petrels (Procellaria cinerea) recolonized following extirpation from the main island in the 1900s but remained spatially and numerically rare in 2018. However, they increased rapidly at 14% and 10% per year, respectively, since cat eradication in 2001. Blue and gray petrel recolonization occurred on steep, dry, west-facing slopes close to ridgelines at low elevation (i.e., high-quality petrel habitat). They overlapped <5% with the distribution of Antarctic prion and white-headed petrels which occurred in suboptimal shallow, wet, east-facing slopes at high elevation. We inferred that the speed of population growth of recolonizing species was related to their numerically smaller starting size compared with the established species and was driven by immigration and selection of ideal habitat.
Submitted to Nature Ecology and Evolution on 9 Nov 2022. Desk rejection 11 Nov 2022; submitted to J Anim Ecol on 5 Jan 2023; desk reject 23 Jan 2023; submitted to Conservation Biology on 29 May 2023; revision requested on 21 Aug 2023; resubmitted on 19 Oct 2023; further minor revision requested on 15 Nov 2023; resubmitted on 28 Nov 2023; accepted 2 Dec 2023.
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Berdejo-Espinola V, Zahnow R, O’Bryan CJ & Fuller RA (2024) Virtual reality for nature experiences. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1005-1007.
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Given the increasing sophistication of virtual reality systems in providing immersive nature experiences, there is the potential for analogous health benefits to those that arise from real nature experiences. We call for research to better understand the human–nature–technology interaction to overcome potential pitfalls of the technology and design tailored virtual experiences that can deliver health outcomes and wellbeing across society.
Submitted to Nature on 23 Feb 2023; desk rejected; submitted to Nature Human Behaviour on 17 Mar 2023; major revision as comment requested on 22 Mar 2023; resubmitted on 11 Jun 2023; confirmation after long delay that the paper went out for review; accepted 4 Mar 2024.
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Gallo-Cajiao E, Morrison TH & Fuller RA (2024) Agreements for conserving migratory shorebirds in the Asia-Pacific are better fit for addressing habitat loss than hunting. Ambio, 53, 1336-1354.
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A full-life cycle approach is a tenet of migratory species conservation, yet the degree to which this is achieved remains largely unassessed. This knowledge gap can be addressed using the concept of social-ecological fit, understood as the match between governance and ecological dimensions. Here, we assess the social-ecological fit for conserving migratory shorebirds in the Asia–Pacific, focusing on habitat loss and hunting. We identify the governance architectures for addressing these two threats and then assess the coordinating capacity of each architecture, measure institutional coverage for each species across their range, and determine the degree of institutional connectivity along their migratory network. We find that social-ecological fit is higher for the governance of habitat designation than for hunting management, with implications for governance practice. Analyses of social-ecological fit thus provide critical insights on the potential effectiveness of governance and therefore are a useful first step for migratory species conservation.
Submitted to Ambio on 23 May 2023; revision requested on 9 Aug 2023; resubmitted 15 Oct 2023; further revisions requested 26 Nov 2023; resubmitted 26 Mar 2024; accepted 28 Mar 2024
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Berdejo-Espinola V, Fuller RA & Zahnow R (2024) Well-being from nature exposure depends on socio-environmental contexts in Paraguay. Nature Cities, 1, 335-345.
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Access to urban nature is an important contributor to human health. Yet evidence of nature’s benefits comes overwhelmingly from the Global North and might not directly translate to cities in the Global South. Here, using survey data from 1,119 residents of Asunción, Paraguay, we found that the context and intentionality of nature exposure and the function of nature in the individual’s life collectively shape nature’s effect on mental health and well-being. While a stronger nature connection was positively associated with life satisfaction, for individuals living in informal settlements, higher levels of greenness near their home were associated with lower life satisfaction. Alternatively, like their Global North counterparts, for residents in formal parts of the city, nature exposure was positively associated with well-being. Our findings suggest that well-being benefits from everyday greenness depend on the socio-environmental context but connection to nature that motivates positive nature seeking can be beneficial for well-being among the urban poor.
Submitted to Nature Urban Sustainability on 19 May 2023; desk rejected 10 Jun 2023; appealed 20 Jun 2023; appeal rejected 26 Jun 2023; submitted to Nature Cities on 24 Aug 2023; revision requested 31 Oct 2023; resubmitted 8 Dec 2023; further minor revision requested 10 Jan 2024; resubmitted 24 Jan 2024; accepted in principle 14 Feb 2024; accepted 14 Mar 2024. Published 1 May 2024.
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Hannah K, Haddaway NR, Fuller RA & Amano T (2024) Language inclusion in ecological systematic reviews and maps: Barriers and perspectives. Research Synthesis Methods, 15, 466-482.
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Systematic reviews and maps are considered a reliable form of research evidence, but often neglect non-English-language literature, which can be a source of important evidence. To understand the barriers that might limit authors' ability or intent to find and include non-English-language literature, we assessed factors that may predict the inclusion of non-English-language literature in ecological systematic reviews and maps, as well as the review authors' perspectives. We assessed systematic reviews and maps published in Environmental Evidence (n = 72). We also surveyed authors from each paper (n = 32 responses), gathering information on the barriers to the inclusion of non-English language literature. 44% of the reviewed papers (32/72) excluded non-English literature from their searches and inclusions. Commonly cited reasons included constraints related to resources and time. Regression analysis revealed that reviews with larger author teams, authors from diverse countries, especially those with non-English primary languages, and teams with multilingual capabilities searched in a significantly greater number of non-English languages. Our survey exposed limited language diversity within the review teams and inadequate funding as the principal barriers to incorporating non-English language literature. To improve language inclusion and reduce bias in systematic reviews and maps, our study suggests increasing language diversity within review teams. Combining machine translation with language skills can alleviate the financial and resource burdens of translation. Funding applications could also include translation costs. Additionally, establishing language exchange systems would enable access to information in more languages. Further studies investigating language inclusion in other journals would strengthen these conclusions.
Submitted to Research Synthesis Methods on 9 Jun 2023; major revision requested 11 Jul 2023; resubmitted 26 Oct 2023; accepted 29 Nov 2023.
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Backstrom LJ, Leseberg NP, Callaghan CT, Sanderson C, Fuller RA & Watson JEM (2024) Using citizen science to identify Australia’s least known birds and inform conservation action. Emu, 124, 199-205.
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Citizen science is a popular approach to biodiversity surveying, whereby data that are collected by volunteer naturalists may help analysts to understand the distribution and abundance of wild organisms. In Australia, birdwatchers have contributed to two major citizen science programs, eBird (run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and Birdata (run by Birdlife Australia), which collectively hold more than 42 million records of wild birds from across the country. However, these records are not evenly distributed across space, time, or taxonomy, with particularly significant variation in the number of records of each species in these datasets. In this paper, we explore this variation and seek to determine which Australian bird species are least known as determined by rates of citizen science survey detections. We achieve this by comparing the rates of survey effort and species detection across each Australian bird species’ range, assigning all 581 species to one of the four groups depending on their rates of survey effort and species observation. We classify 56 species into a group considered the most poorly recorded despite extensive survey effort, with Coxen’s Fig Parrot Cyclopsitta coxeni, Letter-winged Kite Elanus scriptus, Night Parrot Pezoporus occidentalis, Buff-breasted Buttonquail Turnix olivii and Red-chested Buttonquail Turnix pyrrhothorax having the very lowest numbers of records. Our analyses provide a framework to identify species that are poorly represented in citizen science datasets. We explore the reasons behind why they may be poorly represented and suggest ways in which targeted approaches may be able to help fill in the gaps.
Submitted to Emu on 24 Aug 2023; minor revision decision on 8 Oct 2023; resubmitted on 27 Oct 2023, accepted 10 Nov 2023.
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Lisovski S, Hoye BJ, Conklin JR, Battley PF, Fuller RA, Gosbell KB, Klaassen M, Lee CB, Murray NJ & Bauer S (2024) Predicting resilience of migratory birds to environmental change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121, e2311146121.
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The pace and scale of environmental change represent major challenges to many organisms. Animals that move long distances, such as migratory birds, are especially vulnerable to change since they need chains of intact habitat along their migratory routes. Estimating the resilience of such species to environmental changes assists in targeting conservation efforts. We developed a migration modeling framework to predict past (1960s), present (2010s), and future (2060s) optimal migration strategies across five shorebird species (Scolopacidae) within the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, which has seen major habitat deterioration and loss over the last century, and compared these predictions to empirical tracks from the present. Our model captured the migration strategies of the five species and identified the changes in migrations needed to respond to habitat deterioration and climate change. Notably, the larger species, with single or few major stopover sites, need to establish new migration routes and strategies, while smaller species can buffer habitat loss by redistributing their stopover areas to novel or less-used sites. Comparing model predictions with empirical tracks also indicates that larger species with the stronger need for adaptations continue to migrate closer to the optimal routes of the past, before habitat deterioration accelerated. Our study not only quantifies the vulnerability of species in the face of global change but also explicitly reveals the extent of adaptations required to sustain their migrations. This modeling framework provides a tool for conservation planning that can accommodate the future needs of migratory species.
Submitted to PNAS on 3 Jul 2023; major revision decision on 12 Oct 2023; resubmitted 8 Jan 2024; accept in principle 12 Feb 2024; accepted 25 Mar 2024.
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Threlfall CG, Ordóñez-Barona C, Livesley SJ, Baumann J, Callow D, Davern M, English A, Fuller RA, Hertzog K, Hochuli DF, van der Ree R, & Kendal D (2024) Tree removals as socioecological experiments in cities. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 22, e2686.
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As keystone structures in urban ecosystems, trees are critical to addressing many of the current livability, health, and environmental challenges facing cities. Every day, trees are removed from urban landscapes as part of routine management. These tree removals are an opportunity for implementing manipulative experiments to directly measure the social and ecological functions of trees. Here we review the kinds of tree removals that commonly occur in cities, assess the relevant opportunities that arise for research–practice partnerships, and discuss the challenges posed when implementing experiments of this nature. We argue that experimental studies on the routine removal of urban trees will improve and expand the mechanistic understanding of how trees support biodiversity and human well-being in cities beyond current knowledge, which is largely based on correlative studies. Finally, we highlight the opportunity for experiments to be co-designed by scientists and urban land managers, and how "learning while doing" can generate tangible research impacts and improve urban forest decision making.
Submitted to Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment on 8th Dec 2021; major revision decision; resubmitted on 10 Nov 2022; further revision decision on 12 Feb 2023; resubmitted 20 Feb 2023; accepted 27 Feb 2023.
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Backstrom LJ, Callaghan CT, Leseberg NP, Sanderson C, Fuller RA & Watson JEM (2024) Assessing adequacy of citizen science datasets for biodiversity monitoring. Ecology and Evolution, 14, e10857.
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Tracking the state of biodiversity over time is critical to successful conservation, but conventional monitoring schemes tend to be insufficient to adequately quantify how species' abundances and distributions are changing. One solution to this issue is to leverage data generated by citizen scientists, who collect vast quantities of data at temporal and spatial scales that cannot be matched by most traditional monitoring methods. However, the quality of citizen science data can vary greatly. In this paper, we develop three metrics (inventory completeness, range completeness, spatial bias) to assess the adequacy of spatial observation data. We explore the adequacy of citizen science data at the species level for Australia's terrestrial native birds and then model these metrics against a suite of seven species traits (threat status, taxonomic uniqueness, body mass, average count, range size, species density, and human population density) to identify predictors of data adequacy. We find that citizen science data adequacy for Australian birds is increasing across two of our metrics (inventory completeness and range completeness), but not spatial bias, which has worsened over time. Relationships between the three metrics and seven traits we modelled were variable, with only two traits having consistently significant relationships across the three metrics. Our results suggest that although citizen science data adequacy has generally increased over time, there are still gaps in the spatial adequacy of citizen science for monitoring many Australian birds. Despite these gaps, citizen science can play an important role in biodiversity monitoring by providing valuable baseline data that may be supplemented by information collected through other methods. We believe the metrics presented here constitute an easily applied approach to assessing the utility of citizen science datasets for biodiversity analyses, allowing researchers to identify and prioritise regions or species with lower data adequacy that will benefit most from targeted monitoring efforts.
Submitted to Ecology and Evolution on 29 Sep 2023; revisions requested 10 Nov 2023; resubmitted 18 Dec 2023; accepted 11 Jan 2024
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Chowdhury, Fuller RA, Ahmed S, Alam S, Callaghan CT, Das P, Correia R, Di Marco M, Di Minin E, Jarić I, Labi MM, Ladle RJ, Rokonuzzaman M, Roll R, Sbragaglia V, Siddika A & Bonn A (2024) Using social media records to inform conservation planning. Conservation Biology, 38, e14161.
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Citizen science plays a crucial role in helping monitor biodiversity and inform conservation. With the widespread use of smartphones, many people share biodiversity information on social media, but this information is still not widely used in conservation. Focusing on Bangladesh, a tropical megadiverse and mega-populated country, we examined the importance of social media records in conservation decision-making. We collated species distribution records for birds and butterflies from Facebook and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), grouped them into GBIF-only and combined GBIF and Facebook data, and investigated the differences in identifying critical conservation areas. Adding Facebook data to GBIF data improved the accuracy of systematic conservation planning assessments by identifying additional important conservation areas in the northwest, southeast, and central parts of Bangladesh, extending priority conservation areas by 4,000–10,000 km2. Community efforts are needed to drive the implementation of the ambitious Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework targets, especially in megadiverse tropical countries with a lack of reliable and up-to-date species distribution data. We highlight that conservation planning can be enhanced by including available data gathered from social media platforms.
Submitted to Conservation Biology on 18 Apr 2023; major revision decision on 26 May 2023; resubmitted on 12 Jun 2023; accepted 17 Jul 2023