Abstract
We developed an innovative method for finding individuals of a conspicuous species in complex urban habitats. The aim of this study was to detect as many burrowing owl nests as possible in order to develop an ecological and behavioral study. We performed an online survey through the social network, Facebook. The results of this survey allowed us to detect and locate 36 new burrowing owl nests. We conclude that developing online surveys through social networks is an innovative and cost-effective method to obtain information about bird locations, and can complement traditional methods such as field surveys.
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Acknowledgments
We thank people who provided information about burrowing owls location and N. Chiaradia who provided the pictures to post on the Facebook account. We thank J. Guido for field work collaboration. We also thank two anonymous referees for providing helpful comments on an early draft of the manuscript. We appreciate the improvements in English usage made by Caitlin Stern through the Association of Field Ornithologists’ program of editorial assistance. This study was funded by Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata Grant (15-E317) to Laboratorio de Vertebrados and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina (doctoral scholarship to MC). We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the Western Bird Banding Association (student grant to MC) and The International Osprey Foundation (research grant to AVB).
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Communicated by Alexander NG Kirschel.
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Cavalli, M., Baladrón, A.V., Isacch, J.P. et al. Social networks and ornithology studies: an innovative method for rapidly accessing data on conspicuous bird species. Biodivers Conserv 23, 2127–2134 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0704-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-014-0704-8