Sweden - iNaturalist World Tour
Today, we start Week 7 of the iNaturalist World Tour. This week will take us to Sweden, Norway, Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania in Europe, Kenya in Africa, and the Philippines in Asia.
We start the week in Sweden. The capital of Stockholm is the center of activity for the top observer, @evahedstrom, as well as @wildchroma, @annikaml, @vilseskog and others. @smithb, @cassykar, and @neomorphus have activity centered near Malmö in the south near Denmark. @keithwlarson is based in Umeå, but his Arctic research means his observations are clustered at the northern tip of Sweden. There's a cluster of other top observer's here as well (e.g. @anneschaefer). Several top observers such as @veronika_johansson, @belyykit and others have activity centered between Stockholm and Malmö along the southeastern edge of Sweden. You can read more about @veronika_johansson and her work in this Observation of the Week post featuring a sighting of Ethiopian Wolf.
The number of observations per month in Sweden is very seasonal reflecting the high latitudes. Activity bumped up in 2017 and appears to have doubled so far in 2019.
@veronika_johansson, in addition to being in the top 5 observers, is the top identifier in Sweden. She is also the top identifier for plants. As in many European countries, @borisb and @ldacosta are the top insect and bird identifiers respectively. @jmgrinde and @nannie have lent a great deal of identification expertise from nearby Norway as has @juhakinnunen from nearby Finland. Thanks to many other top identifiers in Sweden such as @korobkov and @almantas.
What can we do to improve iNaturalist in Sweden? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread
@evahedstrom @smithb @wildchroma @keithwlarson @veronika_johansson @annikaml @jmgrinde @ldacosta @juhakinnunen @nannie
We’ll be back tomorrow with the Kenya!
Comments
While I don't live in Sweden, I lived just over the bridge in Copenhagen for years. One of the things you will need to deal with in Sweden (and several other Nordic and Northern European nations) is the existence of a highly developed and popular local biodiversity reporting site. In the case of Sweden it is https://www.artportalen.se/
Competing against a local site that has 70 million biodiversity records from Sweden is going to be tough as most highly dedicated naturalists will likely already be using that tool. It may come down to outreach for new users and naturalists, and how you can attract them.
Exactly, agree with @cmcheatle - I don't think of this as competition though, since the audiences might be slightly different. It is not that easy to use Artportalen, it is not for novices, not for people that just visit Sweden (novice or not), etc. A combination that includes communication between the two would be best. I also just talked to someone that says that for him, Swedish observations with photos goes to iNaturalist and ones without photos goes to Artportalen :) So there are advantages with iNaturalist too.
I dont really view it as a competition in the sense of trying to beat the other guy or drive them out of business etc, more just a realistic reflection that most folks lack the time, patience or dedication to enter their sightings in multiple platforms.
I use both Artportalen and iNaturalist all the time and it would be great if there could be some cooperation between them. The records on Artportalen are more complete (e.g. you can indicate how many of each species were observed - with or without a photo). On the other hand it's easier to enter accurate location info on iNaturalist.
Typically if I receive an ID suggestion on iNaturalist, I look on Artportalen to see if it's been observed locally. They're both great sites!
add all Swedish nature reserves would make it better see https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/all-swedish-nature-reserves-as-places-available/47854
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