Identifier Profile: @victorpaiva28

This is the eleventh in an ongoing monthly (or almost monthly!) series profiling the amazing identifiers of iNaturalist. This month’s post coincides with Pride Month, and features a member of iNaturalist’s LGBTQIA+ community. 

Víctor de Paiva Moreira tells me that as a child growing up in São José de Mipibu in northeastern Brazil, he was always interested in animals and loved watching their interactions. Then, “in my pre-adolescence, I became interested in plants because of my grandmother's influence. I helped her in the garden and, from there, I discovered the incredible world of plants, their shapes, colors and among other things, since then it's been my passion.”

Currently a forestry engineer and studying for a master’s degree in Ecology at the Federal Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) in Brazil, Víctor says he’s particularly interested in Brazilian species of Bignoniaceae (Handroanthus and Tabebuia), Cactaceae, Lecythidaceae, and, mainly, Myrtaceae, which is what he’s currently studying. 

Víctor joined iNat about three and a half years ago, and he actually discovered it by chance.

I was looking for pictures of some plant species, and the search took me to a page on the site. When I understood more about the principles of citizen science followed by iNat, I realized that it was something I always believed in and I think essential. Researchers cannot be everywhere, and some information only people in the region can notice. From there, I joined the community to help increase the number of records and help with identification. My main objective on the platform is to accurately enrich the database, thus facilitating the possible studies based on citizen science.

Since then he’s identified over 22k verifiable observations and is the top plant identifier in Brazil. “Despite having some groups of plants that I'm more interested in,” Víctor says,

I go deeper in the identifications, I always try to get to know a little about all the families of South America, especially the Brazilian northeast. I believe this broader view of botany allows us to have more insights and new visions about some studies precisely because of the diversity of interactions and morphological characteristics of each taxon…

Whenever I have free time or am studying a taxon, I use the [iNaturalist] database to learn more from the images and help with identification. As I am usually looking at Brazilian plants, I usually base myself on the Flora do Brasil project. Despite it, I always resort to taxonomic revision publications and consult material deposited in herbariums (Jabot, SpeciesLink, and GBIF), which allows you to learn a little about plants from other countries.

I believe knowledge must be built together, and the role of scientists of the academy is to pass on what they learned to the rest of the people. INat is a practical way to speed up this process, being an open space for discussions, so I always seek to talk, explain the characteristics that differentiate the species and, at the same time, see the opinion of others, debate, and reach a consensus, when possible. I'm sure I've learned a lot more from other contributors than I've taught them.

Víctor identifies as bisexual, and tells me

I believe that being bisexual, and maybe that goes for the entire LGBTQIA+ community, made me see the world differently. It is as if, by living in a society that is most contrary to our existence, we naturally question and challenge the world. This act of looking for well-founded explanations for things is what drives science, so it's always been part of me.

In botany, this worldview always makes me question whether the species I once identified or the interactions I found are still valid and whether there is new knowledge about it. The world, the species, and the vegetation are constantly changing. In other words, life on earth adapts and evolves.

So, being part of the community allowed me to always seek to evolve along with the world, update myself and take this to others. Having a vision of diversity within society facilitates contact with people as different as the assimilation of new information and knowledge from them. These certainly helped me get in touch with several people with distinctive experiences at iNat.

- You can find Víctor on ORCID and Lattes. 

- Here are the most-faved observations of myrtles (Family Myrtaceae) in Brazil.

Join the iNat/500 Queer Scientists Pride Virtual Mixer tomorrow, June 30th, at 5 pm (California time)! You must pre-register here. LGBTQ+ iNatters and allies welcome.

Posted on June 29, 2022 08:45 PM by tiwane