Jaric et al., Data mining in conservation research using Latin and vernacular species names. Peerj - Supplementary material

Supplementary material for: Jaric et al., Data mining in conservation research using Latin and vernacular species names. Peerj

Abstract - In conservation science, assessments of trends and
priorities often focus on species as the management unit. Studies on
species coverage in online media are commonly conducted by using
species vernacular names. However, use of species vernacular names
for web-based data search is problematic due to high risk of
mismatches in results. While the use of Latin
names may produce more consistent results, it is uncertain whether a
search using Latin names will produce unbiased results as compared to
vernacular names. We assessed the potential of Latin names to be used
as an alternative to vernacular names for the data mining within the
field of conservation science. By using Latin and vernacular names,
we searched for species from four species groups: diurnal
birds of prey, Carnivora, Primates and marine mammals. We
assessed the relationship of the results obtained within different
online sources, such as Internet pages, newspapers and social media
networks. Results
indicated that the search results based on Latin and vernacular names
were highly correlated, and confirmed that one can be used as an
alternative for the other. We
also demonstrated the potential of the number of images posted on the
Internet to be used as an indication of the public attention towards
different species.