plants associated with the beetle
When possible, use the observation fields to record the plant associated with the beetle:
Associated species with names lookup: Here you could add the name of the species or the family of the plant associated with the beetle that you saw.
Reference URL: Here you could add the link of the page that contains the independent observation in iNat of the associated plant with the beetle that you saw
If you add some of these fields, the value of the observation will grow a lot, but if you don't know it, don't worry, the observation alone is valuable.
Comments
I'm aware of another Observation Field that appeasrs to provide the same function as the first: Name of Associated Plant.
I don't know which is in more widespread use.
Yes it is true! there are several similar fields. However, I decided to use this because it is the field of observation commonly used in pollinator projects. This saves effort and time in filling the same observation field for several related projects.
Thank you very much for your comment, do not hesitate to make more suggestions if you think it is appropriate.
Greetings!
Thanks! I was unaware of that particular field. I'm also unaware of many "pollinator projects", though that is a focus of many of my Observations.
"Name of Associated Plant" was introduced by @heatherholm for her pollinator Project "Flower-Visiting Wasps of the United States and Canada".
The one I like to use specifically for "potential pollination" is more specific: Interaction -> Visited Flower Of. This distinguishes it from other instances where I observed an insect on a plant, but did not observe it visiting a flower.
For example, so far I have Observations of 28 species (Taxa) on Asclepias syriaca:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=table&user_id=xris&verifiable=any&view=species&field:Name%20of%20Associated%20Plant=47911
but only 10 for those visiting the flowers:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=table&user_id=xris&verifiable=any&view=species&field:Interaction-%3EVisited%20flower%20of=47911
iNaturalist really needs:
1) A taxonomy for Observation Fields, to make it easier to find existing ones that are fit for purpose, and avoid duplicatino.
2) An easy way to batch-edit Observations selected by Observation Field value to apply another. This way, we wouldn't ahve to keep searching multiple, duplicate fields to find what we're looking for.
Thank you very much for the valuable information! I will keep it in mind. I agree, those are good recommendations that would help data management in iNaturalist and especially the observation fields that are synonymous.
Greetings!
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