Digital Participatory Biodiversity Science

We live in an age where biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the natural environment is increasingly under stress. Digital technologies can play a pivotal role in addressing these challenges. This book draws on several case studies of digital participatory science initiatives to reflectively analyze changes in biodiversity knowledge, expertise and infrastructures.

It analyses changes in biodiversity knowledge, expertise and infrastructures in several digital participatory or citizen science initiatives and examines how these projects interact with their local environments and how the results are transported and made visible in other contexts. The projects described involve different groups including indigenous peoples, amateur naturalists, hunters, and researchers, in several geographical contexts, such as France, Finland and Canada, all with ties to international networks.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Science as Culture.

Lorna Heaton is a professor of communication at the Univesité de Montréal, Canada. She is interested in collaborative work practices and the performativity of communications technologies. Her research focuses on the organisational aspects of collaborative work, particularly the interplay between collaborative digital technologies and their uses.

Florian Charvolin is a senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Max Weber Centre, Lyon, France. His research centres on environmental monitoring of biodiversity through citizen science and air pollution through the local use of measuring technologies.