Teacher Amber G F, Griffiths David J, Hodgson David J, Inger Richard
Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9EZ, U.K.
FoAM vzw Koolmijnenkaai 30-34, 1080, Brussels, Belgium.
Ecol Evol. 2013 Dec;3(16):5268-78. doi: 10.1002/ece3.888. Epub 2013 Dec 2.
Smartphones and their apps (application software) are now used by millions of people worldwide and represent a powerful combination of sensors, information transfer, and computing power that deserves better exploitation by ecological and evolutionary researchers. We outline the development process for research apps, provide contrasting case studies for two new research apps, and scan the research horizon to suggest how apps can contribute to the rapid collection, interpretation, and dissemination of data in ecology and evolutionary biology. We emphasize that the usefulness of an app relies heavily on the development process, recommend that app developers are engaged with the process at the earliest possible stage, and commend efforts to create open-source software scaffolds on which customized apps can be built by nonexperts. We conclude that smartphones and their apps could replace many traditional handheld sensors, calculators, and data storage devices in ecological and evolutionary research. We identify their potential use in the high-throughput collection, analysis, and storage of complex ecological information.
如今，全球数以百万计的人都在使用智能手机及其应用程序（应用软件），它们是传感器、信息传输和计算能力的强大组合，生态与进化领域的研究人员理应更好地加以利用。我们概述了研究应用程序的开发过程，针对两款新的研究应用程序提供了对比案例研究，并审视了研究前景，以说明应用程序如何能够促进生态学和进化生物学领域数据的快速收集、解读与传播。我们强调，应用程序的实用性在很大程度上依赖于开发过程，建议应用程序开发者尽早参与到这一过程中，并赞赏为创建开源软件框架所做的努力，非专业人士可以在此基础上构建定制应用程序。我们得出结论，在生态与进化研究中，智能手机及其应用程序可以取代许多传统的手持传感器、计算器和数据存储设备。我们确定了它们在复杂生态信息的高通量收集、分析和存储方面的潜在用途。
