50 million observations on iNaturalist!

Thank you for your role in reaching this milestone! Help support iNaturalist as we grow.

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As of September 20, 2020, iNaturalist has more than 50 million records of wild biodiversity with photos or sounds to allow verification by the community. This year, despite a pandemic and numerous natural disasters, the resilient iNaturalist community continues to forge new connections and discoveries. It has been just 13 months since we passed 25 million observations—continuing iNaturalist’s trend of roughly doubling the number of observations and participants each year since 2012.

Where and what are those 50 million observations? Let’s look at them as dots where each represents 250,000 observations.

Imagine 50 million observations are represented by 200 dots

123 of the 200 dots are of plants and insects. Fish are represented by just 2 dots.

How many dots from each species category?

133 of the 200 dots are from in North America. Africa and South America have the fewest dots.

How many dots are from each continent?

Here's a few more ways to visualize iNaturalist's growth that may be familiar. The graph below shows the number of observations posted each month since iNaturalist was launched in 2008. The site has been roughly doubling each year and there is a pronounced uptick in the northern hemisphere spring and summer. For comparison, it took until November 2014 (or six and a half years) for iNaturalist to reach the first million observations. We broke 3 million observations per month for the first time this year.

Observations Over Time

This map shows the number of observations by country. Just over half of all iNaturalist observations are from the United States.

Observations by Country

iNaturalist is growing differently in different places. In 21 of the top 50 countries with the most observations, the number of observations posted in 2020 is at least double the number posted by this date in 2019. These countries are shown below in descending order. Finland was the fastest growing country this year by this metric. Finland was one of five countries to join the iNaturalist Network of localized iNaturalist portals launched in the last year, along with Ecuador, Australia, Argentina, and Israel. More are in progress.

Where the rate of observations has at least doubled in the last year

In 25 of the top 50 countries, iNaturalist has grown in 2020 compared to 2019, but not quite doubled.

Where the rate of observations has grown but not quite doubled since last year

In 4 of the top 50 countries, fewer observations have been posted in 2020 compared to 2019. All four of these countries had very large City Nature Challenge events in 2019 (notice the peaks around April 2019). The fact that the pandemic made it more difficult to organize in-person events in 2020 probably accounts for the relatively fewer observations this year, even though the baseline of activity throughout the year has increased.

Where the rate of observations has not grown compared to last year

This week on social media we’ll be highlighting observations and stories from each inhabited continent on a different day. You can follow iNaturalist on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

iNaturalist’s Impact

Each of these 50 million observations is an invitation to a conversation about what was seen and its identification. The power of iNaturalist comes from the connections and discussions it enables across borders and levels of professional experience—and the open biodiversity data it creates.

For example, Canadian photographer @pbertner posted photos of of a myco-heterotrophic plant in Peru, which was identified by @kai_schablewski, a botanist in Germany, as Tiputinia foetida - hundreds of kilometers from its only previously known location in eastern Ecuador. And iNat users in both California and Australia collaborated to identify a mysterious sunfish on the shores of Santa Barbara as Mola tecta - the first documented sighting of this species in the northern hemisphere since the late 1800s! Since then, @lauren99 posted a Mola tecta photo from 2015, taken off of the California coast.

@sultana, whose primary interest is malacology, posted some old photos of a weasel caught in his parents’ bathroom, and the iNat community identified them as the first known photos of a living Colombian weasel - perhaps the rarest South American carnivore. And recently @lcollingsparker posted a cicada observation (from her blueberry bushes), which researchers identified as Okanagana arctostaphylae. It was the first known sighting of this species since it was described in 1915!

And in some cases, iNaturalist observations have even led to the description of entirely new species, like the recently described Phidippus pacosauritus jumping spider, first documented in Paco’s Reserva de Flora y Fauna in Mexico.

Conversations about species identifications are happening all over social media, but iNaturalist captures that dialogue in a structured way that enables searching and reuse that is unique. iNaturalist is rapidly becoming invaluable for biodiversity research through the sheer volume, taxonomic diversity, and geographic range of data enabled by the collective efforts of the global community.

In addition to being explored on and exported from the iNaturalist website, the Research-Grade records are regularly shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). GBIF brings together records from museum specimens as well as many different citizen science and monitoring efforts. Although far from the largest dataset on GBIF, records from the iNaturalist dataset have been cited more than any other—804 times to date!

Beyond the traditional application of occurrence data that captures what, where, and when, a new trend of biodiversity research is beginning based on characters in the photographic evidence.

iNaturalist photos capture the timing of seasonal events (phenology), and studies on organisms as diverse as mountain goats, Yucca flowers, and Alligator lizard mating are using iNaturalist observations to fill major gaps.

Sometimes photos capture more species than originally expected, like pathogens. Two recent studies on flowers and fish both examined observation photos of the host species for evidence of the pathogens, which can considerably expand the availability of distribution information beyond museum specimens and targeted inventories (which cannot be replaced by iNaturalist, but complemented).

iNaturalist has the fuel for countless studies of phenotypic variation at a scale unimaginable before digital cameras and GPS. For example, thousands of observations of the widespread blue dasher dragonfly were used as part of a study of wing color variation and climate across North America by @moore-evo-eco.

...Because we are now accumulating this remarkable collection of time-stamped photographs of every manner of plant, animal, and fungi through iNaturalist and similar platforms, we're potentially going to have a digitized record of how each of these organisms evolve over the next few decades. We'll be able to watch evolution occurring on a grand scale. From a purely academic perspective, it's every evolutionary biologist's dream. —Dr. Michael Moore (@moore-evo-eco)

We weren’t sure what to expect when the global pandemic struck. Many grassroots events that typically attract and orient new participants were canceled. Amazingly, iNaturalist activity didn’t slow down, but continued apace despite the pandemic. Instead of exploring on trips, people are finding new and exciting discoveries in their homes, neighborhoods, and local parks. Many people have shared on the iNaturalist Forum how important iNaturalist has been to them during the pandemic by providing a way for them to explore outdoors, learn about nature, and connect with others in a safe way. Biodiversity is everywhere! We have so much yet to learn. What else will you discover thanks to iNaturalist?

iNaturalist needs your support

People and the rest of biodiversity face many challenges ahead. At every moment of the day, iNaturalist is building connections among nature enthusiasts, sharing knowledge across borders, and supporting millions of records that offer crucial insights and opportunities to change course. As iNaturalist grows, so do the costs to maintain it. We know that these are difficult times, but if you are inspired and able, can you donate to support this cause?

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iNaturalist is a not-for-profit joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, and all donations are received by the California Academy of Sciences (Tax ID: 94-1156258).

Thank you to the millions of people who have shared their observations and expertise. iNaturalist would be nothing without curious people who care about biodiversity—it has an impact because of what you do to support it!

By Carrie Seltzer, Tony Iwane, Abhas Misraraj, and Scott Loarie

Posted on September 20, 2020 01:23 PM by carrieseltzer