Integration and application of potential museum collections of natural history disseminated on the Web for biodiversity data accumulation and public conservation awareness

Citizens have uploaded numbers of biodiversity photographs with time and locality information onto websites, including social networking services, blogs, and homepages. We regarded such photographs disseminated on the Web as potential museum collections of natural history and have attempted to accumulate them as actual museum collections of the Kangawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History (KPM), Japan. Based on these activities, which are centered on the public natural history museum, we are building a new conceptual model for biodiversity data integration and public conservation awareness by systematizing (1) collection/accumulation, (2) research/study, and (3) outreach/education. First, the fish photographs registered in the WEB sakana-zukan, as an example of a platform, archived more than 40,000 items for potential museum collections of natural history and accumulated them into the Fish Image Database of KPM by obtaining the consent forms of the purveyors (i.e., citizens). Second, the accumulated collections were used for studies on fish taxonomy, biogeography, ecology, and conservation biology by scientific experts. Finally, the identification and study results were made available to citizens, including the purveyors, through media applications, including a serialization in an off-shore recreational fishing magazine. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the conceptual model with some related issues based mainly on our published papers in order to consider and contribute to development of Citizen Science for biodiversity conservation.