Algeria - iNaturalist World Tour

Today, we start Week 9 of the iNaturalist World Tour. This week will take us to Algeria in North Africa, Finland, Ireland, Croatia, and Serbia in Europe, Belize in Central America, and Vietnam in Asia.



The top observer, @karimhaddad is a naturalist and birder based in the Constantine area in the north eastern part of the country. You can read more about @karimhaddad in this Observation of the Week post featuring a sawfly orchid he spotted near Djimla. Nearly all of the top observers such as @salahtelailia, @walidsoukkou, @aissadjamelfilali, @bbaimene, @saraatailia, @bileltayar, @khaledayyach, @habib2, and @larbiafoutni have observations clustered along the Mediterranean coast from Algiers to the Tunisian border which is where the population density is highest in Algeria. The map is a bit misleading because many of these top observers have observations throughout the country, its just that the centroid of their observations is pulled towards this coastal area. There are a few observers with observations centroids in other regions, however, such as @kesami, @alidz31, and @the_pharmacist based near Oran. @djillali_tahri's observations are centered further from the coast relative to most observers. Some observers have only made observations in the interior Saharan part of the country including @kwara-n-ba near Tabelbala, @spocki and @bobswann near Tamanrasset, @awaf near Ghardaïa, @moses73 near Touggourtv and @andrasz near Tassili N'Ajjer National Park.



The number of observations per month jumped up mid-2018 to around 1,000 to 1,500 observations per month when Association AquaCirta (@larbiafoutni is the preseident and @karimhaddad the secretary general) began using iNaturalist to collect observations among their members. @karimhaddad tells us that they had started using eBird to record observations of birds the previous year (2017) but expanded to iNaturalist to accomodate observations beyond birds. It is also noteworthy that nearly all the top observers appear to be Algerians which isn't the case for a lot of other countries we've examined where most top observers are visitors from elsewhere.



Similar to top observers, most of the top identifiers are Algerians (e.g. @khaledayyach, @karimhaddad , @salahtelailia). @khaledayyach is the top identifier and also leads in plants. @karimhaddad leads in seven categories including plants and insects. Many thanks to other top identifiers such as @ldacosta, @rajibmaulick, and @ghassen.



What can we do to improve iNaturalist in Algeria? Please share your thoughts below or on this forum thread

@karimhaddad @salahtelailia @walidsoukkou @aissadjamelfilali @bbaimene @saraatailia @khaledayyach @salahtelailia @ldacosta @rajibmaulick

We’ll be back tomorrow with Finland!

Posted on August 19, 2019 10:21 PM by loarie loarie

Comments

Thank you a lot #loarie for analyzing the observations in Algeria,I hope this will motivate other observers and encourage the rest to work hard to cover the rest of Algeria especially the south.

Posted by haniechemanal over 4 years ago

@haniechemanal thank you for your efforts and keeping us updated.

Posted by sara_atailia over 4 years ago
The number of observations per month jumped up mid-2018 and has stayed relatively flat around 1,000 to 1,500 observations per month since then - does anyone know what happened here?

I believe that is when the NGO AquaCirta decided to iNaturalist as their biodiversity recording platform and use it for a national day of recording observations.

Posted by tiwane over 4 years ago

That would explain it, very cool - @karimhaddad do you have more information on AquaCirta?

Posted by loarie over 4 years ago

@tiwane yah, I think that the beginning of the great use of the platform inat was on August 19, 2018 where it was proposed to use in a national forum by the Association of AquaCirta.
The activity and enthusiasm at the time was great by the participants to raise all their observations through the site, but this does't prevent that there are individual people started using it before this date in early 2008 but the posts were very modest

Posted by haniechemanal over 4 years ago

@loarie https://algerianbirdersblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/04/rapport-de-la-journee-de-travail-du-18-aout-2018-a-constantine/ This is the blog link created during this meeting in order to collect all the amateur observations via the inat site through which we started to put the first project under the title Birds of Algeria

Posted by haniechemanal over 4 years ago

I totally agree with Manel, the vulgarization is a great tool for attracting intersted people but also the way how the site is presented to others by users seems to be very decesive

Posted by sara_atailia over 4 years ago

Many thanks for the comments of our colleagues : @saraatailia @haniechemanal, some of the most active on the site. Good work and the efforts which you provide and good luck.

Posted by karimhaddad over 4 years ago

Dear @loarie the answer is given by @tiwane, he is absolutely right. The number had increased just after the reunion or forum organized by our Association AquaCirta and with their modest means it went very well.
If you need more details about our NGO you can receive the information by email, you can contact our President @larbiafoutni (larbi87@gmail.com).

Posted by karimhaddad over 4 years ago

Thanks very much for chiming in @karimhaddad, I edit the post above to include the role that Association AquaCirta played in driving the sudden increase in use of iNaturalist in 2018 - thanks for all your help making this happen!

Posted by loarie over 4 years ago

Add a Comment

Sign In or Sign Up to add comments