Leveraging social media and other online data to study animal behavior

Abstract

The widespread sharing of information on the Internet has given rise to ecological studies that use data from digital sources including digitized museum records and social media posts. Most of these studies have focused on understanding species occurrences and distributions. In this essay, we argue that data from digital sources also offer many opportunities to study animal behavior including long-term and large-scale comparisons within and between species. Following Nikko Tinbergen’s classical roadmap for behavioral investigation, we show how using videos, photos, text, and audio posted on social media and other digital platforms can shed new light on known behaviors, particularly in a changing world, and lead to the discovery of new ones.