Four key challenges in the open-data revolution

In Focus: Culina, A., Adriaensen, F., Bailey, L. D., et al. (2021) Connecting the data landscape of long-term ecological studies: The SPI-Birds data hub. Journal of Animal Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13388. Long-term, individual-based datasets have been at the core of many key discoveries in ecology, and calls for the collection, curation and release of these kinds of ecological data are contributing to a flourishing open-data revolution in ecology. Birds, in particular, have been the focus of international research for decades, resulting in a number of uniquely long-term studies, but accessing these datasets has been historically challenging. Culina et al. (2021) introduce an online repository of individual-level, long-term bird records with ancillary data (e.g. genetics), which will enable key ecological questions to be answered on a global scale. As well as these opportunities, however, we argue that the ongoing open-data revolution comes with four key challenges relating to the (1) harmonisation of, (2) biases in, (3) expertise in and (4) communication of, open ecological data. Here, we discuss these challenges and how key efforts such as those by Culina et al. are using FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible) principles to overcome them. The open-data revolution will undoubtedly reshape our understanding of ecology, but with it the ecological community has a responsibility to ensure this revolution is ethical and effective.