"Serious" Data Collection with inaturalist
iNaturalist is a citizen science website, but the website and app are also powerful tools for collecting 'professional' data. I work as an ecologist, but yesterday I had a day off and decided I didn't want to spend the unseasonably warm, sunny fall day indoors. So I set out for Pine Mountain Wildlife Management Area, a place I had never been before in an area no one had entered anything into iNaturalist.
i was wondering the woods for fun, so in a sense I too was being a citizen scientist, one of many 'professionals' who also records biodiversity data for fun. But I also wanted to see what sort of plant species list I could build in just a few hours (along with any other taxa I came across). I quickly documented species using the iPhone app, and took notes about natural communities when it made sense, as well.
The result? 153 observations of 81 taxa (including a few observations I took from turnouts on the drive out. This number may also change if I add a couple more IDs or copy observations for extra species). All have photos and GPS data. Some have associated species tagged. Many show the state of late-fall (or lack theref) color in the trees. I also documented several natural communities - a fen, a dry oak forest, a rich northern hardwood forest, and a northern hardwood talus woodland.
When I am doing surveys 'for real' I still like to have a pen and notebook, of course. Perhaps I always will. But at least in the case where the data can be shared publicly, iNaturalist also offers a way to quickly make an ecological assessment of a place, complete with photos and GPS points.
It's really a powerful tool, even if this is not exactly what the app and website were created to do.
The journal post wouldn't let me add all 153 observations to this journal entry, but you can see them here.
Observations
Photos / Sounds
What
Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata)Observer
charlieDescription
Fen. Dead swamp beaver flood. .
Photos / Sounds
What
Threeleaf Goldthread (Coptis trifolia)Observer
charlieDescription
Hemlock forest with balsam fir.
Photos / Sounds
What
American Beech (Fagus grandifolia)Observer
charlieDescription
Nhf with a few spruce and oak in us.
Photos / Sounds
What
American Beaver (Castor canadensis)Observer
charlieDescription
Old sign. Oddly far from beaver wetland.
Photos / Sounds
What
Basswood (Tilia americana)Observer
charlieDescription
Nhtw with betpap betall querub fraame
Photos / Sounds
What
Rock Polypody (Polypodium virginianum)Observer
charlieDescription
Dryint drymar
Photos / Sounds
What
Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum)Observer
charlieDescription
Talus decreases about fifty feet up
Photos / Sounds
What
White-grained Mountain-Ricegrass (Oryzopsis asperifolia)Observer
charlieDescription
I think. Enter drowpf
Photos / Sounds
What
Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra)Observer
charlieDescription
Very good example of dry red oak white pine forest of the sort with low white pine cover(there was some behind me)
Photos / Sounds
What
Sessile Bellwort (Uvularia sessilifolia)Observer
charlieDescription
? Above here the pine drops out nearly pure querub
Photos / Sounds
What
Pennsylvania Sedge (Carex pensylvanica)Observer
charlieDescription
Probably. Oak forest.
Photos / Sounds
What
Spongy Oak Apple Gall Wasp (Amphibolips confluenta)Observer
charlieDescription
Oak gall
Photos / Sounds
What
Silverrod (Solidago bicolor)Observer
charlieDescription
I think. Hard to tell without lvs
Photos / Sounds
What
Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis)Observer
charlieDescription
Very neat vp right on peak.
Photos / Sounds
What
Red-berried Elder (Sambucus racemosa)Observer
charlieDescription
Shrubby talus
Photos / Sounds
What
Beech Scale (Cryptococcus fagisuga)Observer
charlieDescription
A few querub widely scattered. Nhf or mronhf
Photos / Sounds
What
American Hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana)Observer
charlieDescription
Open grown
Photos / Sounds
What
Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra)Observer
charlieDescription
location is of trees not photo
Photos / Sounds
What
Northern Whitecedar (Thuja occidentalis)Observer
charlieDescription
Brook side
Photos / Sounds
What
Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra)Observer
charlieDescription
Identification from afar... oaks very evident on this mountain. Point where the oaks were seen (note you can see that big quarry) not where the photo was taken (the photo was taken from the town of Groton).
Photos / Sounds
What
Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra)Observer
charlieDescription
Saplings. There's a larger one that may be planted. But they are scattered along the road even in this cold area.
Photos / Sounds
What
American Beaver (Castor canadensis)Observer
charlieDescription
Messing up the road.
Photos / Sounds
What
Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra)Observer
charlieDescription
photo is location of the oaks not where the photo was taken
Photos / Sounds
What
Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)Observer
charlieDescription
Stuck behind school bus
Comments
Yesss! We need more people doing this. (:
i know! soooo muuuch daaata! And it was a super laid back and fun day. It would also be fun in a group of maybe two or three, too many more and you'd want to split into teams. I think iNaturalist may someday create a feature like ebird where if you are in a team of two or three you can tag the others and share the observations for that trip
Love it Charlie. To riff off the team idea, diversity is important for serious data collection. Different people = different strengths, passions, tools (long lens for birds, insect nets, microscopes, genetic sampling), and networks of friends and colleagues.
iNat can be a platform to facilitate mini-RAPs like the Chicaga Field Museum and CI used to do to catalyze conservation action, but be open and public-driven.
Oh totally.
And... just to be clear... by 'serious' i just mean intensive and focused. By all means any general naturalist including well informed amateurs can do this. It just isn't what most people do with iNat. (apparently I am by far the heaviest app user with even more app uploaded observations than Ken-ichi who created it. Which blows my mind because the app is so easy, but i also have no other camera).
I really like the idea of rapid assessments and natural community mapping with fully public data when appropriate. Obviously this doesn't apply to some situations such as rare plants, and also many cases on private land (though obscuring can allay some of that). But why not have government groups and land trusts and such share biodiversity data? It's great outreach.
Agreed!
In the absence of a "Like" button, thanks for posting.
There's a germ of an idea to work with Geocaching to direct people to make observations from certain areas in a DIY-bioblitz-like way. In a similar vein of the value of this community and the data it produces, I just wrote a new journal post.
Yeah, it's a neat idea to strategically plop points on (publically accessible) interesting areas and sending people out to see what they find. Or even combining iNat with something like this (with a healthy dose of respecting trespassing laws). Or a system that analyzes the 'nearest neighbor' to let you search for outliers and stuff. A while back Scott was looking at a system to re-verify old species records via a standalone app, not sure if it is still active in that form.
So many ideas. So many problems.
Charlie I think you're thinking of this: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/biocaching/id827737251?mt=8
Love the geohashing idea!
Yep that's it! I never got into it because I could never resist adding all the other things in addition to the target species.
Calflora has a similar app for plants found in California. I haven't used it though since calflora adds research graded flora observations on inaturalist into their database.
Oh I think I've heard of that. Does it take photos and such too? I wish there were an easier way to see stuff like that, since there's no way to click through to those on the map. I use the species maps on here a LOT.
Yes, you can add photos to each observation report. I usually use the species maps shown on other databases like calflora.org and bugguide.net to help with my identifications since the data on inaturalist is more limited in respect to certain taxa. The species map for birds and butterflies work wonders on here though since they are commonly uploaded (at least for California).
I love the calflora data, wish Vermont had something that comprehensive (the best we have is now iNaturalist for plants/moths and Ebird for birds) However I wish there were more photos on calflora that were easy to get to especially with weird range extenders and stuff. Calflora does send to GBIF right?
I don't know whether or not calflora directly share their data with GBIF although I do see some of their data on GBIF.
So iNaturalist shares to Calflora and GBIF but Cal Flora only sometimes shares with GBIF. So confusing.
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