Insights for conservation from the Ecological Knowledge Games project

Environmental conservation research requires robust methods for collecting large-scale behavioral data and engaging diverse stakeholders in decision-making processes. We (Y.P., A.B.D., and N.B.) created EcoKnowGames (Ecological Knowledge Games), a transdisciplinary project that develops knowledge games for conservation science and data collection. We explored two existing knowledge games created by ecologists for the project: Power Up!, which collected over 57,000 player decisions on energy-biodiversity trade-offs, and RESTORE, focused on ecosystem restoration scenarios. Building on these examples, EcoKnowGames integrates game development with ecological modeling to establish pathways from player decision-making data to predictive socioecological models. We developed EcoKnowGames open-source game builder tool in partnership with an established game studio, which allowed researchers to create custom knowledge games without extensive technical expertise. EcoKnowGames addresses key challenges in game-based research, including privacy protection, participant consent, community engagement, and policy applications. This novel approach contributes to conservation research by providing empirically tested tools for integrating human behavior data into socioecological models and offers a complementary approach to traditional stakeholder engagement methods in decision-making processes.