Plant ID field question
A question was asked about the plant id - if the species was not known, but say, just the family or genus name was, and someone else knew the name - how to change that id.
Since the plant id is a field that the observer can edit, possibly a comment with the species name could be added to the observation (where known), and then the observer could edit the observation to update the field.
Does that make sense ? It is the only method I can think of.
Also, the plant id field is not shown in the list of the observations in a project.
Comments
For observation fields of type taxon, you can add any taxon, so if you know the plant was in Asteraceae but you didn't know the species, you could just add Asteraceae. As far as recommending a taxon for the observer to enter, yes, currently the best way would be to leave them a comment.
Exactly.
But that's got me thinking. It would be great if in some mystical future time, we could connect observations together in an interaction web. iNaturalist already lists next to my observations all the other observations I made on the same day. Imagine a viewer that displayed all the observations I made at the same place and, say, within the same hour, and I could make connections between them (this ate that, that pollinated this, etc.).
Just thinking out loud, mind you, and not in the right place. But that would be neat.
iNaturalist observations are verified by the "Research Grade" process. The Observation is elevated to that status by two or more agreements. This is a programming process built into the iNaturalist system. The user added observation fields do not have this support. Lynn Watson's and @kueda comments outline a process that I have been using for the last year. It works most of the time but sometime there is no response. I have been using @jon_sullivan 's observation field "Associated Species" in several of my projects. It is a great general utility field. Currently, I am reviewing the Butterfly Moth Nectar Plants project. This project uses "Nectar Plants" as the required observation field. I have been adding "Associated Species" to make the data compliant with my project.
In observations that identify higher taxa or incorrect names I have been adding "Associated Species" to the observation field list and making a comment. My takeaway is that there need to be a standard observation field that verifies the interacting species.
PS
A second thought on binding observations together to define a ecological community. The project Oregon White Oak Associated Species is such an attempt. Jon if you would like to continue a discussion on community observations drop me a line.
Some observers document their flower visitors with observations of the host that undergo standard verification. This is an excellent field technique that leads to higher quality observations. I just added a new field that supports this documentation, "Reference Observation". The field is a text field that requests the supporting observation URL.
Thanks @carexobnupta. Good thinking. We have used the "Associated observation" of @tony_wills for a similar purpose. Do you think your new "Reference Observation" field could be combined with that or do they need to stay separate?
It would be good to talk more about binding together observations. I'm keen to get more people connecting their observations with interactions. I'll check out your Oregon White Oak Associated Species project now.
It would be really good if one of the options for taxon type observation fields was a hyperlink to an associated observation that would automatically update if the community ID on the associated observation was changed.
@tony_wills I really like the idea of the hyperlink. I designed and implemented the "Associated observations" yesterday and do not have any great investment into it. I did check the design tool to see if I could specify an URL link. The only option was text. The hyperlink option would need to be designed into the iNaturalist code. What I envisioned is that, one would need to copy the link and open that page. I think Tony is suggesting that the name in the observation field update with new changes in the original observation. That would be "way cool".
@jon_sullivan I see a real need to talk about biological communities. This is a high level concept that requires an ecological insight to structure and document. In the Oregon White Oak project there are two ways to document the community. The first is to ask contributors to make observations in and around the target dominant species. I have not published any instructions on community documentation. I do not think that has been understood. The second method is to map the soil unit of any Oregon Oak observations and include any associate species that fall within the soil unit. The second method may be workable in the US as there exists a reasonably good national soil survey. For historical reasons this soil survey is a map of local floristic communities that have an association with specific soil profiles. I do not know if that exists anywhere else. It works so well that I can predict the presence of Oregon White Oak based on the soil.
The other approach to community is the projects "Pollinator Associations", "Butterfly & Moth Nectar Plants", and "Butterfly & Moth Host Plants" were there is an effort to document specific species to species relationships. I believe that this is a very positive approach. The main need is to support the value of the observation. Some iNaturalist are supporting their own association observations. I have been going back to the inventory of their daily observations to check if they documented the host. Initially, I was just copying the host species over to the insect observation but I just realised that the host observation URL, the "Reference Observation" was the best reference. I looked at one of the "Associated observation" links and it took me to a different web platform. I am not clear on the total implications of this observation field and would like to better understand your utility and intent.
From a data share point of view, I would like to have a system where there is a unified language and exceptiable understanding of data attributes. The existence of two observations fields with the same meaning and different names can only lead to data misplacement and loss.
re ""Associated observation" links and it took me to a different web platform", the problem is that the different portals into iNaturalist (iNaturalist.ca, naturalista (Mexico), naturalista (Columbia), NatureWatchNZ) show different URLs for the same observation. The observation number itself is the same, but the site prefix is different, so it makes this sort of URL field problematic. It would be good if iNat had addressed this a long time ago by having an 'observation number' type for observation field contents - so the entry would just be the observation number, and it linked to the observation on whichever portal/platform you are running on.
In descriptions and comments you can add a relative hyperlink that leaves you on the same site, but this doesn't work in observation text fields:
Instead of just pasting a link to another observation as http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/985491, enter a relative URL in the form of an HTML link code <a href="/observations/985491">985491</a> which will give 985491.
Very interesting. I tested your protocol. Both methods work in comments as you stated. I tried the HTML link code in the Reference Observation field and it only returned text. I think you were saying enter the link code in the comment section as to display as a hyperlink? I am not a programer, but thank you for the insight into the working of HTML.
I think I misstated the portal issue as what I was looking at was "Associated observation", the list of observations that use the observation field, https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/1718, which then pointed to the ebird record.
Considering the need for a hyperlink or text, it may not matter. I think is is important just to make reference to the id of the host. Those that wish to check can copy the link into a web browser. The long term value is when the project is downloaded to a local file the reference record a supporting reference in the download.
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