How does iNaturalist Count Taxa?
Note - this blog post doesn't reflect recent changes to how lists work. The 'Species' count on a user's profile is now driven by a user's dynamic lifelist which you can also access from the lists page
A common question to both help@inaturalist.org and the iNaturalist Google Group is why the species counts on Your Observations are different from species counts elsewhere on the site such as your Life List.
Unfortunately, counting species has some subtle complexities that make this trickier to explain that we'd like. On top of that, Life List functionality on iNaturalist works quite a bit differently than the Your Observation functionality which complicates things further.
We wrote a tutorial to try to explain some of these complexities about how iNaturalist counts taxa. We also provide some steps for how to sync up your Life List count with the count displayed on Your Observations. Read more
Comments
Bravo. I've been curious about this for a long time. I would love an addendum about how place checklists are calculated!
I appreciate the explanation, it's all quite interesting. However, I only ever want to see terminal taxa. If I've observed Ivesia gordonii alpicola and Ivesia gordonii ursinorum, I have observed two things. Life List will count three things. Your Observations will count one thing. It's two things.
is this related at all to how the calendar page tracks life list firsts? i have noticed that it misses things a lot of the time.
@dgreenberger do you mean 'leaves count' without roll rolling up infraspecies? To be clear, that would be all taxa minus ancestors. Thats how we initially launched the Species tab on the Your Observations / Explore page, but there were lots of complaints relating to the ordering by observation frequency. For example if I had 100 observations on a species and just 2 on a child ssp with the original leaves count the ssp with its 2 obs would likely be buried far down on the list, whereas with the current leaves count that rolls up infrataxa the species with its 100 obs would likely be towards the beginning.
charlie - yes the calendar tracks life list firsts by using the 'first observation' stats on your Life List listed taxa which is one of the main things that can get out of sync. And similarly something that 'syncing' your Life List via the steps described should fix
Thanks Scott, i will try that. I used to sometimes add things to my life list that weren't observations, but i don't do it much anymore so i guess i don't care too much if i lose those.
charlie - even if you manually add things to your life list that shouldn't mess with the calendar life list firsts, and as for the counts with the default 'observed = yes' filter they should still match what you see on Your Observations
Thank you! I like this option that I've overlooked this whole time, apparently. Lol.
On an only slightly related note, does anyone know what the "Observed" option means when filtering the stats in your life list? The options are yes, no, and any, but I don't understand why any of my observations would not be observed, seems counter-intuitive.
bennypoo you can manually add things to your life list that you haven't observed. For example, I once saw a Tayra so I added it to my list but I don't have a corresponding obs. I can see that listing by filtering by 'observed=no' (1 taxa) https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/9413-loaries-Life-List?q=&taxon=&observed=f&rank=leaves&taxonomic_status=all
but by filtering by 'observed=yes' this listing isn't counted (5,697 taxa)
https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/9413-loaries-Life-List?q=&taxon=&observed=t&rank=leaves&taxonomic_status=all
but by filtering by 'observed=yes' this listing isn't counted and matches 'Your Observations' (5,697 taxa) https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=loarie&verifiable=any&view=species
and by choosing 'observed=any' it is counted (5,697 of 5,698 taxa observed)
https://www.inaturalist.org/lists/9413-loaries-Life-List?q=&taxon=&observed=any&rank=leaves&taxonomic_status=all
At least thats how its supposed to work when everything is synced up. But unfortunately, list functionality has a way of getting out of sync with observations so chances are unless you follow the steps to re-sync your list as I've done here, your listings are going to be a bit out of sync with what you've actually observed
@loarie Yes, I wish my body of observations could be viewed through the lens of 'all taxa minus ancestors.' The current options don't accurately reflect the observations of those of us who strive to identify to subspecific rank whenever possible.
Like, if I've gone through the trouble to see every single variety of Eriogonum umbellatum, Your Observations will display "1 species" instead of 25. Ouch.
And at the same time, if I observe:
-Eriogonum umbellatum nevadense
-Eriogonum luteolum caninum
-Eriogonum wrightii subscaposum
-Eriogonum nudum nudum
-Eriogonum ovalifolium nivale
my Life List will sit at 10. Five plants, 10 taxa doesn't make sense either.
It's a niche concern but I thought I'd throw it out there.
dgreenberger - totally fair. One issue is that we're trying to find a count that is comparable across the site for things like leaderboards etc.
but also allow people to search for and count what they want.
I agree that 'all taxa minus ancestors' is a legit use case to be able to search for that we should add.
For the count that's comparable across the site, we had wanted verifiable 'leaves count' (all taxa minus ancestors while rolling up infraspecies) to be that count. But as I mentioned in the post, we haven't found a way to calculate the leaves count on leaderboard so at the moment they're showing verifiable 'species count' (all species while rolling up infraspecies) which is annoying.
Thanks for this article, I’ve been confused on this for a while.
Is it possible to use the explore tool to see all the genera/families/orders etc that I've seen?
For example, if I've observed 3 Lithobates clamitans, 2 Lithobates pipiens, 1 Lithobates of indeterminate species, and 2 Anaxyrus americanus, and sorted the observations to show genera, it would list 6 Lithobates and 2 Anaxyrus.
@loarie
Thanks for the tip! And thanks for the whole tutorial. It's fantastic!
mws - not currently if you use the rank filters you can show only genera (e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?hrank=genus&lrank=genus&place_id=any&view=species) but it will only count observations sitting on those genus nodes - i.e. it won't 'roll up' as your describing. I agree that would be super cool and useful though. @pleary has spent some time exploring the limits of what we can do with the Species tab on the Explore tool, but we're having a hard time figuring out how to do anything to complicated and also have it be performative, work across all observations globally, and continue to work as the number of observations continues to scale
It's disappointing that there's no higher-taxon-viewing functionality yet, but I'm glad to know that you guys are looking into it. I'm looking forwards to the future of the species tab.
Thank you mightily for creating this journal entry — I can’t even tell how many times I’ve been asked what’s up with the discrepancy between the various ‘life lists’ and ‘species observed’ etc... Normally, I just tell them to go out and observe more. Now I can keep telling them that and to read this entry. ;)
Keep up the awesome work — loving it all. :)
I've started looking at my life list after reading the article and discovered that many of my verified research grade observations are only found when using the setting observed = 'no', why is this?
colinchiu did you re-sync your list using the steps described? If so and you're still seeing that, can you paste in a listed taxon URL that you think should be backed up by an observation but isn't?
@laorie My apologies, I didn't click re-apply list rules, sorry for bothering.
On my lists other than the life list, under the number of taxa it displays something like '569 of 718 observed'. What does this mean?
catherineklatt , your lists that are not your primary Life List default to showing all listed taxa regardless of whether they have been observed or are ‘leaves’. So that means there are 718 listed taxa on the list and you've observed 569 of them. If you change the filter from 'observed = any' to 'observed = yes' the count should change to 569
Friends I need some help with a rare bird ID: tentative is Red-breasted Sapsucker in NE Oklahoma (where it has no business being). The discussion is whether or not is a hybrid with a red-naped sapsucker (which also has no business in NE Oklahoma). I have three photo of the bird, and would great appreciate feedback. All of my field guides indicate this is a Red-breasted. Help?
I have photos of the bird under my observations. (3 photos)
@nevusmom i think your best bet is to just post an observation. Possible outlying bird occurrences get a lot of attention and people will probably help with ID. This is a thread about taxa number tracking where you probably won't find additional help (i don't know enough about birds to know either)
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