Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, 1474 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA.
Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
Sci Rep. 2022 Mar 21;12(1):4802. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-08330-w.
Amid accelerating threats to species and ecosystems, technology advancements to monitor, protect, and conserve biodiversity have taken on increased importance. While most innovations stem from adaptation of off-the-shelf devices, these tools can fail to meet the specialized needs of conservation and research or lack the support to scale beyond a single site. Despite calls from the conservation community for its importance, a shift to bottom-up innovation driven by conservation professionals remains limited. We surveyed practitioners, academic researchers, and technologists to understand the factors contributing to or inhibiting engagement in the collaborative process of technology development and adoption for field use and identify emerging technology needs. High cost was the main barrier to technology use across occupations, while development of new technologies faced barriers of cost and partner communication. Automated processing of data streams was the largest emerging need, and respondents focused mainly on applications for individual-level monitoring and automated image processing. Cross-discipline collaborations and expanded funding networks that encourage cyclical development and continued technical support are needed to address current limitations and meet the growing need for conservation technologies.
在物种和生态系统面临的威胁不断加剧的情况下，监测、保护和维护生物多样性的技术进步变得更加重要。虽然大多数创新都源于现成设备的适应性调整，但这些工具可能无法满足保护和研究的特殊需求，或者缺乏扩展到单个地点之外的支持。尽管保护界呼吁重视这一点，但由保护专业人员推动的自下而上的创新仍然有限。我们调查了从业者、学术研究人员和技术专家，以了解促成或阻碍参与现场使用的技术开发和采用的协作过程的因素，并确定新兴技术需求。高成本是各职业领域技术应用的主要障碍，而新技术的开发则面临成本和合作伙伴沟通的障碍。数据流的自动处理是最大的新兴需求，受访者主要关注个体监测和自动图像处理的应用。需要跨学科合作和扩大资金网络，以鼓励循环开发和持续的技术支持，从而解决当前的局限性并满足不断增长的保护技术需求。
