Introduction: digital participatory biodiversity science

This introduction presents the context in which digital participatory biodiversity science has developed. After describing its basic operating model and how it is affecting scientific practice, the text suggests that a science and technology studies perspective may shed light on some of the issues raised by new ways of doing biodiversity science. It highlights issues of authority and expertise, different modes of representation and visibility, and the importance of infrastructure. Finally, the introduction briefly describes each of the four papers in the special section and draws parallels among them. Digital technologies blur previous clear-cut dichotomies between producers and users of data and reconfigure the distribution of agency among living beings and technologies. They connect local practices and achievements of biodiversity monitoring with extended outcomes, produced by the transposition, and adaptation of practices or the interoperability of data in larger infrastructures.