Special Issue: Social Media in Service of Aquatic Ecology

More than 80% of Earth’s surface is aquatic, with a vast volume of habitats and a range of environments, providing precious and vital resources for human populations throughout the world. With the continued urbanization of aquatic habitats, environmental and species monitoring are essential for an effective management of aquatic resources, but it is usually expensive and time-consuming and has low responses both in time and space, with very limited or sometimes no presence of the general public. Social media may represent a low-cost and less time-consuming monitoring strategy if compared to traditional methodologies, providing environmental and biodiversity observations that are many times publicly and easily accessed, geo-referenced, real-time, and long-term. This Special Issue emphasizes the growing potential of social media as a data source for databases, also providing insights into aquatic ecology. We welcome original contributions that investigate the use of social media for answering ecological questions in aquatic environments. Contributions are solicited in, but not limited to, the following topics: Social media as a data source of geospatial information into aquatic environments and species (e.g. population dynamics, species distribution, ecosystems services, etc) Insights into aquatic ecology (e.g. new species, first records, rare occurrences, species introduction, symbiosis, animal behavior, public perceptions, etc) Citizen science and public engagement in aquatic ecology and conservation through social media Computational techniques, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, applied in social media ‘big data’ for aquatic ecology Designs, methods, techniques, tools and results of the investigation of social media impact, utility, accessibility, and usability in aquatic ecology