Sharks are rapidly dying out , and scientists urgently need moredatato reckon the extinction risks for these jeopardise species . Now , marine research worker in Australia say that dive template and amateurs can assist fulfil some substantial gaps in their noesis .
All the researchers really need are hoi polloi who can count the shark that they see . In fact , these citizen scientists have already help with one study , where researcher used entropy collected by 62 guide on more than 2,300 dive over a five - year full stop at the coral reefs in Palau , Micronesia . The scout , who chatter 52 sites , used standardized inquiry protocols to cater a count of the sharks they spotted , as well as data on species , water depth , current force , water temperature and visibility .
The shark counts provided by the underwater diver closely agreed with figure obtain by the nautical scientists , who had used passive acoustical tagging and telemetry . What ’s more , the extra entropy provided by the diver on water temperature and current military posture proved particularly valuable , showing that the sharks were present in great numbers when the current was strong and the H2O was insensate .
“ It gave us much more information than just the number of sharks and it also gave an indication of why the sharks were there in high abundance at those minute , ” says the field ’s booster cable writer , Gabriel Vianna , a maritime scientist at the University of Western Australia , who concluded that “ with a little fleck of grooming and a good sample distribution design , recreational underwater diver gather very useful data point that can be used to supervise shark populations over long periods of time and across big spatial areas . ” And , best of all , they can do it at much lesser cost .
take the study , “ Acoustic Telemetry validate a Citizen Science Approach for Monitoring Sharks on Coral Reefs , ” atPlosOne .
Citizen scienceMarine biologyScienceSharks
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