sambiology's Journal

I'll preface this all by saying that I don't own land! I'm just a kid, and my two cents are worth just a cent and a half. So, take any of my opinions about this stuff with a grain of salt!

I have had a few discussions about landowners and landowners' rights lately... I'm drawn to a few conclusions and perhaps a little confusion on my part.

Someone stakes claim to a portion of land a few hundred years ago. This land is then transferred through time among family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Money changes hands, hand shakes are made, names are written on deeds. But I'm curious -- who does this land really belong to? All the species that make up that land -- who do they belong to?

I did a little googling, and found out there are quite a few legal terms when it comes to landowners... "A landowner has a right to occupy the surface of his/her land. A landowner has a right to plant trees, crops, and other vegetation on his/her land. A landowner has a right to the air above and below his/her to a reasonable extent." (http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/land-ownership-rights.html)

Species (plants, animals, fungi, etc) found on this land have evolved and changed for millions and millions of generations, but then they're branded with the name of the person that has purchased the land where they originated...? These landowners thereby own the biodiversity and all of the knowledge of the biodiversity just to themselves, right?

I guess I just don't understand it and probably have some growing up to do when it comes to this, but it does seem a bit confusing to me.

Don't get me wrong, I always obey the "no trespassing" signs that I see, but at the same time, I scowl at them. I won't go on the land you claim to own, but do you really think you own it? Every species recognizes you as their owner?

I don't know! Maybe, if I own some land someday, I'll have a different opinion. Right now, it's just confusion.

What do you think?

Hey iNat friends and community,

So, my wife and I want to go to Costa Rica in the middle of November (our anniversary)... How many of you have been? Did you go through an agency? Did you get a package deal? Housing? Vehicle?

Would LOVE to hear of some of your travel experiences -- it'd be my first time to do this sort of thing, and I sure could use some advice of what to do...or not to do. :)

Every now and then, I 'google' my name -- you should too! It's interesting to see what the internet knows about you... Anyways, I came across this article solely because they used a shot of mine from iNat!

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/how-and-why-does-this-caterpillar-whistle/

If only I would have known that they squeak, I would have had a lot more fun showing this caterpillar to kiddos. :)

P.s. I LOVE that they used a photo of mine -- I'm quite honored. I want any of my photo/observations to be used by anyone at any time. Credit or not, I want this info to be used and shared. I was lucky that they credited the site and name, just so that I could find it. :)

So, I've talked to several folks about common names and scientific names. It's a funny thing -- people get bent out of shape about one or the other. It's really nothing to get one's panties in a wad about. :) The organisms don't care what we call them!

However, names of things are the first part of our understanding/appreciation of them. After all, "The first step in wisdom is to know the things themselves" (Carolus Linnaeus)...

So, I like to learn as many different names as possible for the organisms. I also like to attach common names to organisms too. Even if it's just a rough translation of the scientific name, I think that's ok. As I communicate with the public, I try to use as many names as I can remember -- "Texas bluebonnet, Texas lupine, or Lupinus texensis."

With iNat, there's one default common name, but there can be multiple common names used (and available for searching). Just look at all of the names for purslane/Portulaca oleracea: http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/58991-Portulaca-oleracea...

I do like attaching a common name to as many of the species that I observe though. I try my best to remember the scientific names, but many times, I can at least remember a common name.

So, which is better? Well, common names and scientific names both have great uses. Common names are of great use to the general public (the public that should be able to appreciate the organisms without twisting their tongues), and scientific names are of great use to folks that want to understand the organisms' relationships with other organisms.

Both are good to know! :) It's ok to prefer one over the other, but I do hope all can recognize the importance of both based on the audiences. After all, when it comes to nature, all audiences are important!

What do you think?

June! My big month! With all the rains of May here in Texas, I foresaw that we'd have a nice green June, so I took advantage of this and went out iNaturalisting… a lot. Again, forgive me for spamming up your dashboard with lots of plants and bugs. I saw some cool stuff this month!

I set my personal goal to observe as many different species as I could in this one month. I ended up seeing around 500 species in about 1000 observations. Of this 500, about 300 were plant species, 130 were bugs (47 dragonflies and damselflies!), and about 40 bird species. If you do want to see the fun list, here it is:
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/taxa?hrank=species&on=2015-06&user_id=sambiology

So, what did I learn? Well, again, this is a reason that I’m soooo bonkers about iNaturalist… We share this planet with lots of different organisms. We interact with lots of different organisms each day – if just with our eyes. I tried to intentionally notice as many different species as I could. I documented as many as possible (although, I do restrict myself with plants – I try to only observe/document plants that have reproductive structures like flowers or fruits) where ever I went. I tried to find some new spots that I hadn’t been before too! I didn’t travel too too far around TX this month, but I still spotted quite a few critters and plants in a small area.

I documented a lot of super common species and several of these are non-native, invasive species. It's still very important to document all of the common species. We interact with these common ones quite a bit. Even the non-native, invasive species are important to document – they share the planet with us too. :)

I encourage everyone to go out and observe even the common species. Get to know your neighbors! :)

Since we've had a crazy wet May here in TX, I've decided that June will be my big month. I'm setting a personal objective to observe as many different species as I can this month! It's quite fun, and I've spotted some brand new ones for me.

Most of these observations I'm making this month are very common species in TX. Am I wasting my time to post these? Well, I don't think so -- each observation is a point of data on that individual's or population's existence in space and time.

I'm still looking at plants a lot, and I try to only post the plants that have reproductive structures (flowers or fruit). This is crucial to the ID of the plant, and I'm quite cautious to ID a plant based just on vegetative characteristics.

Recently, I've been getting into dragonflies! These are such amazing insects. Big time thanks to the folks here on iNat that are giving me guidance on their ID's.

A challenge -- go outside and observe more! Even if it's something extremely common, I challenge you to go ahead and observe it and post it. Visit a park you haven't visited before, too. Who knows what kinds of neat critters/plants you'll spot?!? :)

The folks at iNat have done a really great job on the app.

I've been bumping up my observations lately by using the app. In the past, I wasn't too crazy about the app, solely based on the image quality that I got from my iPhone. Well, either the app improved or my camera on a newer iPhone improved, but now I use that a bunch! The image quality is pretty good, especially after clicking "large" or "original" on the image. It's quick to observe too -- just a couple touches on the iPhone. I try to only observe organisms that I'm fairly certain of the ID with the app... A lot of these are the "common weeds." Despite the commonness, I still want to document their existence in space and time. :)

As I was trained in the herbarium, a fertile specimen is a good specimen, so I try to only observe plants with flowers or fruits. Most if not all good keys use these reproductive structures. So, I think it's important to get flowers or fruits with my observations.

Now, I use my camera (nothing spectacular -- it's a Nikon Coolpix P530) on most moving critters -- dragonflies, birds, mammals, etc... I do this for the zoom capacity and the image quality. I'll crop the photos with the camera too (I used to not do this, and I'm sure it was fairly annoying to see my observations). I also use my camera on the plants that I'm not certain about -- or weird unique ones that I'm unfamiliar with. It takes a lot longer to upload these, as I manually put in the location and maybe write a little bit about the observation, but it's worth it to learn a little more about the organisms.

I try to take a few images for each observation too -- if it's an organism I don't know, I'm not sure which angles are important... So I try to take several! Trust me, not all of them turn out great... But hopefully a few are usable.. :)

So, do you use the app or a camera or both? If you only use one or the other, try using both!

So, I've observed fox squirrels 27 times, northern cardinals 24 times, northern mockingbirds 19 times, common dandelions 12 times, and Texas bluebonnets 16 times. Overkill, right? Well, I don't think so. Each one of these adds a point to a growing database of biodiversity!

Quantity over quality then? Should I just document the weird or new things I see? It's true -- I tend to get more excited when I see a brand new plant for me, and I sigh each time I see yet another invasive species like a dandelion... But each of these is a useful observation. With iNaturalist, I think that quantity IS quality -- an observation with some empirical evidence (a photo or a sound) adds a lot of information when added with lots of other observations. We can see the global distribution of fox squirrels (http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=46020) because of all of those single observations. We can watch it through time as well -- how far north or south are they really found? Prove it -- with observations! :)

In my opinion, you SHOULD add the local weeds as observations! You should take pictures of the neighborhood squirrels! Will it take up useful time that you could be adventuring for the unknown critters out there? Possibly... but it does provide (along with lots of other observations) useful information on a species' distribution. And step out to a park or green spot that you've never visited before -- see what kinds of common things are out there too!

What do you think?

P.s. When I worked in the herbarium, I noticed that there were lots of gaps in the distribution of species that everyone KNOWS are out there... This was usually the case with the invasive species... I made it a point to find the counties where some of these invasive plants weren't officially documented with a specimen and collected. It could have been a waste of time, but my little dot added to the map. Well, it sure didn't hurt the plant populations much! :)

So, after my trip to Portland, I've found myself hitting on the "ID please" box as I upload many observations...

Well, I do this for a couple reasons -- the intended purpose is to ask anyone else for some guidance on identifying the plant/bug in question. The second reason I do it is to tag it for myself... Sometimes, I'll go back and study the organism a little more -- I'll do a search for "Oregon wildflowers" or something like that and perhaps get some more suggestions on what it is.

Sometimes, I won't take enough photographs or won't get the right angles to make any ID possible... I tend to leave these observations in the "ID please" section... If I ever do go back to that location and see the plant or critter again, I'll try even better to get the angles I missed the first time.

Most importantly, after an observation is ID'ed either by myself or by someone else, I untag that ID please box. This removes the flag for myself and lets me focus on the critters I still need to ID. :)

OH! I do hope that more people would message others on iNat asking for help. I know that when I've received a message asking for some guidance on an observation or two, I definitely check that out and devote some time and energy into providing some guidance to an ID.

Just my two cents and how I use that ID please box!

So, I just got back from an AMAZING conference (American Trails) in Portland. I sneaked off every now and then to explore some of the parks, and wow. Portland has a LOT of really neat plants and animals! I spotted a lot of lifers -- many of which I don't yet know what they are. :) All I know is that they're new to me! Stay tuned for a pretty big upload of new observations.

Anyways, I didn't get on iNat too too much, so I have quite a few notifications to go through. Sorry I haven't gotten to these sooner -- if you posted a shot from the bioblitz last Saturday, I'll be going through those too!

It's been a great week. :)

Now, time for a nap! (took the day off from work to rest)