A paper published in the “Regional Studies in Marine Science” has emphasized how the combination of social media, underwater photography and citizen science can provide insights into the study of the marine environment.
A new study in the Journal BioScience utilizes imagery taken by citizen scientists to analyze population, distribution and movement of whale sharks (Rhincodon typus). An application designed by NASA to recognize stars has been used to automatically catalog and identify sharks from images uploaded to the Wildbook for Whale Sharks. Some 30,000 individual encounters with 6,000 shark in 54 countries have been analyzed thus far.