What Can Social Media Tell Us About Insect Trends?

: Chowdhury: Insects are not the focal study group when they designated the new protected areas, for example, we studied how current protected areas covered the geographic range of insects globally, and we found that 76% of insect species are not well protected globally for most of the protected areas. The focal group are actually vertebrates, and there are not that many protected areas globally which are focussed on insects.

00:00:29: Hahn: Welcome to Inside Biodiversity. This podcast is hosted by iDiv, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. My name is Volker Hahn. I am head of the Impact Unit at iDiv. My guest today is Shawan Chowdhury. Shawan studies insects and he leads a research group at the Monash University in Australia. Before that, Shawan worked at iDiv for a couple of years. In this episode we discussed the differences between Europe and Shawan's home country, Bangladesh. When it comes to insect diversity and the threats insects face, we touch on how anyone can use their smartphone to identify insects and how this information can then be used by researchers like shown for insect monitoring. Sean also shares his experience of using social media for science communication. Enjoy this episode of Inside Biodiversity. Shawan, I would like to begin with the subject of your research, which is insects, and we've talked before and I know that you're enthusiastic about insects. Why is that? What is so fascinating about insects?

00:01:41: Chowdhury: Well, there is actually a good story behind that. Like, I first started doing fieldwork on birds of urban areas in Dhaka, but then suddenly I joined a fieldwork work or photo work from the butterfly Bangladesh Facebook groups, which was obviously on butterflies. Then I was really surprised to find about 70 species of butterflies in a very small urban green space in Dhaka. And then I realised that not many people globally are working on insects, so it will be quite interesting to work on insect conservation and afterwards I. All the projects I continued are on somewhat related to insects.

00:02:22: Hahn: So that was when you were already into research, right? Um, yeah. What what made you study zoology in the first place?

00:02:34: Chowdhury: Well, that's actually a funny story because I'm originally from Bangladesh, and students in Bangladesh don't really get the I mean, often do not really get the subject they like, but it's based on the admission test score. So my admission test score was not that good. So I actually I found I had to study zoology, but my connection to nature actually started from my childhood when I used to catch dragonflies or butterflies or roaming around the fields to find some insects, but when I started studying zoology, I was really fascinated by watching many BBC or Nat Geo documentaries, many by David Attenborough. And then it really triggered me to actually being a biologist and work on biodiversity conservation later.

00:03:22: Hahn: Okay, well that's fascinating. Would you still. Well, if you could choose now, would you choose to study zoology again?

00:03:31: Chowdhury: I'm not going to choose studying zoology, but I'll definitely choose doing research in zoology, because when I was attending classes, I was not that good. And my course was not like the best student in the class. But I really liked doing research, so something more applied and this is what fascinates me most. So if someone asks if I want to go to the university to study geology again, then I'll say no. But if someone asks that, if I want to continue doing research on geology for the rest of my life, then 100% yes.

00:04:05: Hahn: So we'll talk about your research. For instance, you had a study published that's called Protected Areas in the Future of Insect Conservation. And in that paper, you say that there is a lot of data on global species distribution, but rather little information about the actual threats and which, of course, is needed to to protect insects. Can you tell us more about that, please?

00:04:41: Chowdhury: Yeah, it was a review published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. And when I was doing the review, then I realised that, I mean, we found about 1600 studies on protected areas and insect conservation, but most of the studies are just discussing about the checklist, like how many species they found in that particular protected area. But when you are checking that when you're doing the threat assessment, then we didn't really find a specific, uh, trade. For example, uh, comparing the before and after situation of that particular protected area on that threat intensity. But people are just mentioning that climate change or habitat fragmentation or human disturbance are actually impacting species distribution. So it is just more like mentioning that this particular threat impacted insect species in that particular protected area, but, uh, not doing any threat, intense uh, intensity study in general. So, for example, if we think about the vertebrates, then, uh, there will be many study where the researchers study the before and after impact of the, for example, the land use impact for a species. Uh, but for insects, that kind of study is quite rare.

00:05:55: Hahn: Can you tell us a few threats that there are for insects. What are the reasons why insects are declining, at least in in some areas of the world?

00:06:09: Chowdhury: Well, there are many studies that actually talked about this issue. For example, the export through export assessment, like the glitters project in the UK. And also there is a study published in nature, probably in 2019 by Charlie Outhwaite. And they found they actually did the study on climate and land regions, agricultural intensification. And they found that this is actually happening globally. And the interesting thing is that, like the protected areas have been established to insulate insect from diverse threats, but the threats insect are facing is actually similar in site protected areas compared to the outside Protected areas.

00:06:51: Hahn: So are those areas not protected well enough or is it? Why are there the same threats?

00:07:01: Chowdhury: It could be because that insect are not the focal study group when they designated the new protected areas, for example. In another study published in Walnut. Last year we studied the how the protected areas are, how current protected areas cover the geographic range of insects globally. And we found that 76% of insect species are not well protected globally. But obviously, the data that we have from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility was not really enough for most of the species. So I think it could be one reason that the threats are similar inside and outside product areas is because the insects are not the focal group in most of the studies or in most of the protected areas, which we pointed out in our review published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, that For most of the protected areas, the focal group are actually on vertebrates, and there are not that many protected areas globally which are focussed on insects.

00:08:05: Hahn: When one looks at a map of global meta analysis, there are usually a lot of data from areas like Europe and the United States. While in other areas in the tropics, for example, there is there's rather little data. Is that also true for for Bangladesh? If you would compare like Germany and Bangladesh is there? Uh, is there a big difference in in the amount of data? Because I would assume that the, the biodiversity is probably much higher in Bangladesh. Isn't that true?

00:08:46: Chowdhury: Yeah, that's an excellent point. Like for example, the amount of biodiversity that each tropical country has is actually much higher than the European region or the North America. But if you think about the global analysis, then you can see that there is actually a large hole from the tropics. Because while systematic data has been very, very popular in the developed world, it hasn't been that popular in the tropics or in the developing countries. Like if you think about the insect decline study, the most comprehensive one was done by Roel van Klink, published in 2020, in science.

00:09:21: Hahn: So that's Roel van Klink here from iDiv.

00:09:24: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. So that's the most comprehensive meta analysis so far on insect decline. And if you see the distribution of protected areas in the study map, then you can see that there are not that many study from the tropics. It's mostly because that the systematic collection or systematic biodiversity monitoring is not that popular in those areas. Like if you think about Bangladesh, uh, and go through the go to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility database, you can see that there are not that many records from Bangladesh because the citizen science applications are not their popularity. But there will be some records of birds because many people are using eBird these days, but not iNaturalist. Like, for example, we worked on the social media. We worked on the importance of social media in some studies, and we found that the Facebook actually has much more data, are much more better, much better data than GBIF in general.

00:10:25: Hahn: Yeah, we'll talk about social media later and the different apps that can be used for counting species and identifying species. Let's talk a little bit more about the the difference between, let's say Germany and Bangladesh. I would assume that the threats for insects are different in Bangladesh than in Germany, but if there's much less data, does that also mean we know less About the drivers of biodiversity and insect change in Bangladesh than in Germany. And what do we know?

00:11:02: Chowdhury: Yeah, that's a really good question. Like, for example, when we actually want to find out how individual trait has impacted the species distribution, do we actually need to know, like long term data from that particular area and how the intensity of that trade that that trade has differed over a time period? But as I have mentioned before, that such data is not really that common in Bangladesh. But from my personal field observations, I can say that, yeah, the threat that insects are facing in Germany is actually much different in Bangladesh because Bangladesh is like the most populated country with a population of at least 10 million people. And because of the growing population, the habitat fragmentation is very common and the amount of pollution has been increasing severely in the last decade. Like, for example, most of the transports in the city areas are like 30 or 40 years old, and the amount of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide that these vehicles are emitting is actually severely impacting species. And I also think that the soil composition has changed significantly over the last few decades, but I don't really know about that. Like, for example, I used to survey urban green spaces in Bangladesh, and when I started my fieldwork in 2013, then I used to find like 60 or 70 species of butterflies on a single day from each urban green nature park. But after about three years of study, it's really difficult to find more than 15 or 20 species on a single day. Although this is like a very small time period to actually compare how the species composition has changed over time. But overall, I can say that this is actually happening for all the species. So it can actually say the true trend of different insect species there.

00:13:00: Hahn: So one thing tell me if I, if I summarise this well is that I hear from what you're saying is that maybe in Germany the landscape per se does not change that much. But when you look at agricultural fields, there's an intensification which might be a big driver of, of, uh, insect change, while in Bangladesh it's really the landscape itself and the land use that is changing a lot. Is that correct?

00:13:28: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. And also if you think about agriculture, then it's happening a lot because in South Asia, people are mostly dependent on rice and different kinds of vegetables. And about 70 or 80% of people are actually directly dependent on agriculture. And if you think about the protected areas, they're also agriculture happening inside the protected areas. So the protected areas are not actually capable of reducing the threat that species are facing there, but and also the growing population. But if you compare the population growth, it's not actually that high in Germany. But I think it's negative right now. But in Bangladesh, it's actually growing really fast. Like we now have about 180 million people in our country of like 40% of Germany.

00:14:19: Hahn: And that's that's a problem because you need to to feed the people. And so you either need to import food or you need to intensify agriculture or you need more land. So there are lots of trade offs, I guess, how to solve that. You mentioned social media and Facebook. You also mentioned, um, iNaturalist. I guess many of our audience are not familiar with iNaturalist. Can you please explain what iNaturalist is and how that is? where is that comparison to Facebook, which you mentioned?

00:14:56: Chowdhury: Yeah. Nowadays everyone has a digital phone. So whenever we visit some place we find, we can find like any species. So when you are taking that photo, we can actually upload those incident science applications. And iNaturalist is one of the most popular citizen science applications globally where anyone can upload their photographs. And this will be identified by Regional experts, which will eventually go to the global biodiversity repositories.

00:15:23: Hahn: So I can take a picture of an insect or a plant or a snail or whatever. And and then this this app helps me to identify it.

00:15:37: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. So whenever someone takes the photo, these will I mean, some regional experts will help them identifying this that photograph up to the species level or sometimes the genus level. And this is actually a great contribution to the global conservation, because these data are eventually getting deposited to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. And when the conservation planners.

00:16:01: Hahn: So that's a repository for global biodiversity data, where it's all collected, and biodiversity data that researchers can use for their analyses.

00:16:11: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. So if anyone is interested about Germany, for example, they can just go to the website, they can select Germany and then they can select the taxonomic group they're interested in. And they can also choose iNaturalist. I mean, all the data sources that they have. And they can see how iNaturalist or any other citizen science applications have contributed to the biodiversity knowledge globally.

00:16:36: Hahn: Yeah, there's one in Germany for plants, which is called the Flora Incognita. Yeah. Is that data also going into um, so you can use that to identify a plant species. And is that also going to the um the GBIF data?

00:16:52: Chowdhury: Yeah. I think it's also going to the GBIF data. And the GBIF data has, like, uh, data from thousands of citizen science applications globally.

00:17:02: Hahn: Okay.

00:17:03: Chowdhury: And.

00:17:04: Hahn: Yeah, what about Facebook?

00:17:05: Chowdhury: And, uh, that's a tricky question because, uh, the Facebook data doesn't really go to the global biodiversity databases. So, uh, if someone is interested in getting the data, they will have to go through the manual process, collect the data, and then, uh, do their analysis.

00:17:24: Hahn: But you assess the potential of using Facebook data because especially in Bangladesh, a lot of people use it and they take photographs of insects and plants. And so there is a lot of data within, uh, Facebook that could be made available to a platform or a data set like, like GBIF, but it doesn't. It needs some processing.

00:17:54: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, to give you a full story. Like, when I first started my PhD in 2018, I didn't even know about the GBIF database, but, uh, whenever I talked to someone, then they were asking that. Is there any species in Bangladesh? Why? You don't really find them in the global biodiversity databases. But from my personal experiences, I knew that many people are using Facebook to share their biodiversity observations, but I couldn't really see those records in the global biodiversity databases. So I thought it'd be really interesting to start a side project on these and scrap biodiversity data from Facebook group. So in our study, we chose the 6 or 7 taxa that has been, uh, that we had the redlist data for in Bangladesh. And we chose one most popular taxa for almost most popular Facebook group for each taxa, and with the help of some volunteers, we collected or extracted all the biodiversity observations from Facebook. Until 2021. Yeah, and overall, we found nearly 45,000 species occurrence record from Bangladesh for over 900 species. And when you compare that data with the GBIF data, then we found that the GBIF data were mostly around the central part of the country or around the major cities, whereas the Facebook data are much more sparse, much more widely distributed throughout Bangladesh. And we also compared how the range size differed before and after, including the Facebook data. And we found substantial differences as well.

00:19:42: Hahn: So that means there's a huge potential of using social media, like for example, Facebook for measuring biodiversity and biodiversity change.

00:19:53: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. I mean, Facebook data has the potential to reduce the global biodiversity data gap. But it's not only about Facebook, it's also about the other social media channels. But in Bangladesh, Facebook is the most popular, which is why we chose Facebook. And uh, we also did a conservation and planning assessment where we analysed how the most important conservation areas identified using the spatial prioritisation technique, various, uh, with or without adding Facebook data. And if we only included birds and butterflies. And we found that after adding the Facebook data, the most important conservation areas identified increased by 4000km square for parts and 10,000km square for butterflies.

00:20:40: Hahn: So that's a real worthwhile, uh, thing to do, or helpful for really practical reasons, for identifying areas that maybe need more protection.

00:20:52: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly.

00:20:54: Hahn: So you use social media for your research or it's part of your research, but you also use it for communicating your science. And you are very active in in science communication. How do you use social media for that and which social media channels are you using?

00:21:15: Chowdhury: Well, I've been using different social media channels for a while, but I started using I started using social media with Facebook when I started my undergraduate degree. And uh, yes, because Facebook is the most popular. Then during my PhD, I realised that many researchers are using Twitter. So I started using Twitter at that time. And although I opened my LinkedIn account many years ago, like during my university years, but I have started, I have recently started using LinkedIn, uh, widely. It's because many people are moving from Twitter to LinkedIn or other social media channels. So I thought, if I want to reach out to many people, then it's better to use multiple social media channels at the same time. And I've been using social media channels for multiple purposes. For example, when a new research, when my new research is published, then I usually shared them on social media. But I usually follow different approaches when sharing on different social media channels. Like, to give you an example, my Facebook in my in Facebook, my community is more like non-scientists people. So when sharing it with them, I usually uh, only try to emphasise on the results and what are the implications for the wider audience. But when sharing it on Twitter in the first week, I only shared the results and then I follow a systematic approach like I discussed the methods and how it's related to other research. So it's like more systematic approach. But on LinkedIn there is no word limit. So on the same post we can actually write as much as we can. But again, I usually try to be more systematic and not to talk about academic jargons throughout my post.

00:23:05: Hahn: So depending on the on the social media channel, you have different target groups, you use different language and you basically have a bit of different goals. And so you you don't just copy paste what you've written on one channel for the other other one. Is that correct?

00:23:24: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. I also often translate the research into Bangla. So Bangla is the language for Bangladeshi or Bangalore Bengali. And when the research is about Bangladesh, then I usually translate them in Bangla and I post them on Facebook. And I also often share those posts on different Facebook groups which are on biodiversity observations so that anyone interested in that particular study, they can actually go through that.

00:23:54: Hahn: I saw on one paper you did, um, a nice figure, uh, which is a graphical abstract, and you used that one also on social media. Tell us a little bit about the time you spend on, on, on doing that, which is kind of in addition to the regular paper. Right.

00:24:13: Chowdhury: Yeah. Exactly. Like when the proof I mean, we're actually talking about the how protected areas cover insects globally. So when the proof came out, it was in one Earth. When the proof came out, I thought if I if we really want to have some impact on this paper, it's important to follow a strategic approach. So I spent about seven days to collect the species common names for each family and then, uh, redo some parts of the analysis and find out the mean and median protected area coverage. And how much? What are the shortfall? And then we created this figure with only considering the species common names that people are aware of, so that everyone understands what is the situation for insects in protected areas globally. So although I spent about a week for to create this figure or getting the background data, but it helps me a lot to reach many people. Like for example, we were approached by nearly 100 news outlets globally and this work was featured in many newspapers globally. Like there are like more than 50 newspapers in Germany.

00:25:25: Hahn: Yeah, that was also supported by press work.

00:25:28: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. It was also supported by iDiv Press Media and also the Cell Press featured our work.

00:25:37: Hahn: Yeah. So you are basically in collaboration with others, using multiple channels simultaneously to communicate your research, and much of that communication is for target groups outside of academia, at least not biodiversity researchers. So I wonder what is your motivation to do that? Why do you want to reach people outside of the scientific community? Because it may not. It's not necessarily helpful for a career in science.

00:26:10: Chowdhury: Yeah, that's a really good point. Like for example, we academics are always busy doing research and it sometimes become more quite difficult to complete everything within the 40 hours work period. And if someone is interested in science communication, then they need to find extra time for those work. But I really enjoy talking to the wider audience, and it helps me to actually make some impact in the community. Like, if you think about Bangladesh, that most people do not really have sufficient knowledge about biodiversity conservation, like what actually are the importance of biodiversity. So, for example, the last time I visited Bangladesh in February this year and I was when I was talking to my relatives, no one actually has a background of this subject, but when I was discussing the research with them, they were actually quite fascinated that conserving biodiversity actually has also impact on human wellness. So that's why I'm mostly inspired about using different social media channels so that I can reach to a wider audience. For example, when I was working with the Butterfly Bangladesh Facebook group and we also organised a social, different social events like a photography competition where we invited different photographers and also the general people who can share their photographs and talk about biodiversity conservation or butterfly conservation in general. And it was quite impactful. And overall in throughout all these events, I was really inspired that, uh, it's actually our duty to reach to a wider audience whenever we are doing research and whenever we are interested in talking to them, we actually need to follow a certain approach.

00:27:55: Hahn: So. And you've been doing that for quite a while, and I guess you find that it's it's worth doing that.

00:28:03: Chowdhury: Yeah, I have been doing this for nearly 13 years now and I really enjoy doing that, although it takes some of my entertainment time. But I actually find this as an entertainment that talking to the wider community.

00:28:17: Hahn: Okay, great. Uh, so that was fascinating to hear about your your research, your enthusiasm for for insects, for science, how it's linked to social media, how social media is then linked to the way that you communicate your science. What would you like our audience to remember from this conversation in a week from now?

00:28:41: Chowdhury: The good thing about social media is that we can actually reach a diverse set of people with the same post, both academics and non-academics. So whenever we plan to share our research on social media, we actually need to be a bit strategic. Like for example, the word that we are using when talking to a scientist. Ma is not going to be understandable by a person from a different background. It doesn't matter whether they are scientists or not. So when sharing our research on social media, it's really better to actually yield to use such words that everyone can understand. So it's not like with all the numbers about our research, but actually about the implications about the research, and then people will really enjoy reading that. And the second point that I think is important is which community or which part of the world we are interested in reaching out. For example, we all have different time zones. And if you think about that, Uh, think about that. If you are from Europe, then we are not going to reach the people from the United, uh, United States or the people living in Australia because of like 8 or 10 hours of time difference. So it's better to actually.

00:29:57: Hahn: It's because social media people usually read it immediately after it's posted. Right? And not hours later.

00:30:04: Chowdhury: Yeah, exactly. So because of the algorithm, sometimes it's really difficult to reach a wider audience with the same post. So it's better to follow, uh, or decide which people we want to attract to. For example, if you are from Europe, the European people are all are going to read the papers at one point. But we also need to think about other continents because, for example, if you think about Asia, most people actually lives there. So we need to be very strategic on which time we are posting the or which time we are sharing our paper. For example, people usually are like enjoying the weekend and many people don't really check their emails during the weekends. Now, if we share our research on Monday morning or Friday evening, then it's not really a good time to reach many people because many people will be offline. So it's better to actually share our research during the middle weekdays, like from Tuesday to Thursday, and at a time that we can reach the most amount of people.

00:31:09: Hahn: Yeah. Makes sense. So that's very interesting because you are very strategic about how you do your science and your science communication. It was a pleasure having you here, Shawan. I wish you all the best and I hope you have have good memories of iDiv.

00:31:26: Chowdhury: Thanks again, Volker, for inviting me, and it was such a pleasure sharing my stories with you.

00:31:32: Hahn: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to recommend it to a friend or colleague. Also, we are always excited to receive feedback directly or via social media. Let us know what you think.