******************************************************************************
CALL FOR PAPERS
Journal of Aquatic Ecology Special Issue:
Social media in service of aquatic ecology
******************************************************************************

Paper submission deadline: 30 September 2022

******************************************************************************
Aims and scope

More than 80% of Earth’s surface is aquatic, with a vast volume of habitats and a range of environments, providing precious and vital resources for human populations throughout the world. With the continued urbanization of aquatic habitats, environmental and species monitoring are essential for an effective management of aquatic resources, but it is usually expensive and time-consuming and has low responses both in time and space, with very limited or sometimes no presence of the general public.

However, the overgrowing dissemination of information in social media using smartphones equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) and high-resolution cameras is revolutionizing ecological research.

With more than four billion users worldwide in 2022, social media platforms are web-based services allowing people to create personal profiles, form a virtual community, articulate connections and interests with other users, and post and propagate multimedia which are rapidly increasing in volume and scope. In this context, social media may represent a low-cost and less time-consuming monitoring strategy if compared to traditional methodologies, providing environmental and biodiversity observations that are many times publicly and easily accessed, geo-referenced, real-time, and long-term.

This Special Issue emphasizes the growing potential of social media as a data source for databases, also providing insights into aquatic ecology. We welcome original contributions that investigate the use of social media for answering ecological questions in aquatic environments.

Main Topics

Contributions are solicited in, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Social media as a data source of geospatial information into aquatic environments and species (e.g. population dynamics, species distribution, ecosystems services, etc)
• Insights into aquatic ecology (e.g. new species, first records, rare occurrences, species introduction, symbiosis, animal behavior, public perceptions, etc)
• Citizen science and public engagement in aquatic ecology and conservation through social media
• Computational techniques, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, applied in social media ‘big data’ for aquatic ecology
• Designs, methods, techniques, tools and results of the investigation of social media impact, utility, accessibility, and usability in aquatic ecology

Guest Editors

Lorena Silva do Nascimento, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil (lorena.sn@ufpr.br)
Carmem Satie Hara, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil (carmemhara@ufpr.br)
Miodeli Nogueira Júnior, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil (miodeli@gmail.com)


Reviewing process

All papers will be peer reviewed by a minimum of two reviewers, experts in the field, appointed by the Guest Editor(s) of the issue in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal.

Copyright information

Submission of an article implies that:

• the work described has not been published before, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, or thesis;
• it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

For further information, please refer to the “Ethics & disclosures” section on the website of the Aquatic Ecology journal, at https://www.springer.com/journal/10452.

Submission guidelines

Submissions should be prepared according to the author instructions available at the journal homepage, https://www.springer.com/journal/10452/submission-guidelines.

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through the Springer Editorial Management System available at https://www.editorialmanager.com/aeco/default1.aspx. This can also be found via the “Submit manuscript” button on the home page.
Please select the relevant Special Issue during the submission.

For technical questions please use the “Contact the journal” section on the home page.