Using Facebook user photos to quantify surface water dependency in Southern African arid-zone bird species

ABSTRACT

Birds need to maintain their hydration by either gaining water from their food or by drinking surface water. Many arid-zone birds do not need to consume surface water to maintain body condition. Conservationists need to better understand avian use of surface water sources to inform management plans in a warming world. In this study, we explored the use of Facebook’s image search as a tool to predict interspecific variations in avian surface water use. There was a significant correlation between the proportion of Facebook photographs of each species associated with surface water, and surface water use indices for these species based on published field studies. These findings suggest that Facebook may be a useful source of data for determining the dependence of bird species on surface water. Future research could address the potential for Facebook and other social media platforms for answering a range of ecological questions relating to avian water dependency.

KEYWORDS:

• Avian drinking behaviour
• desert birds
• Kalahari
• Karoo
• online image search

Acknowledgments

We thank the many people who responded to Facebook messages and comments requesting location information from their photos (list of names available on request), and the many people who share their photos and the relevant information to make their photos useful for science. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare there are no conflicts of interest.

Data deposits

Data are deposited with figshare, and can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22127243

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2023.2182223