Journal of Ecosystem & Ecography
Open Access

Abstract

The quality of people's knowledge of nature has always had a significant influence on their approach to wildlife and nature conservation. However, direct interactions of people with nature are greatly limited nowadays, especially because of urbanization and modern lifestyles. As a result, our segregation from the natural world has been growing. In this light, we have developed a unique technology of camera monitoring that offers to generate enormous amounts of high-quality biological and engineering data with minimum effort and allows the public to be involved in scientific research in undemanding ways. In particular, we have developed and tested a method of automatic camera monitoring that allows the collection of unique knowledge on breeding biology in cavity-dwelling animals. This system enables the remote acquisition, storing and sharing video, audio, and text data on everyday animal activities inside bird boxes, and live-streaming animal life on websites. The technology developed has potential to be applied across the world and society, and it can be incorporated into multiple scientific fields, including education, environmental and computer science, ecology, and social science. This approach offers a powerful open door for moving youngsters and others to have a fabulous time figuring out how to act like researchers and gives expansive chances to building up the until now disregarded instructive potential of Citizen Science.

Biography

Marketa Zarybnicka has her expertise in ecology, behaviour and conservation of birds and small mammals. Her researcher on Boreal owl in air-polluted areas in the Czech Republic has gradually transformed into a Citizen Science project that aims for camera monitoring of bird nesting and collecting of biological data with the help of the public.

E-mail: zarybnicka@fzp.czu.cz