University of Leeds Campus Biodiversity Monitoring

Welcome! this is a project for biodiversity monitoring on Leeds University Campus.
If you would like to help run this project as a Biodiversity Ambassador please contact biodiversity@leeds.ac.uk

How to make high quality observations

1) Accurate species identificiation. It is important to be as accurate as possible when identifying species. At minimum this should be to the Kingdom level, for example ‘plant’ or ‘fungi’ is acceptable. There are a number of tools we can use to ID accurately such as PlantNet, PictureInsect and others. While these are useful tools, their algorithms are never perfect and often make mistakes. This is where the iNaturalist community comes in - while we should try as far as possible to avoid missidentification, iNaturalist may direct your observation to other members who may be able to help.

2) High quality images. Wherever possible, it is important to include images with your identification. Ideally these should be close up, including as few other species as possible, from multiple angles and well lit. This will help your observation get verified and for others to check your ID. While it is not always possible to get a good picture of what we see - we’ve all fumbled for our phones just as a bird decides to fly away - please include images if you can. If you cannot include an image, please log the sighting anyway as it may be possible to corroborate with other observations.

3) Accurate date, time and location. iNaturalist will log this information for you. However, if you are logging a sighting after the fact, please make sure you try to accurately log where and when the sighting was made.

4) FIT location. If you are making an observation while walking one of our campus transects, please include the FIT location you are at. FIT locations are marked on maps you can find below.

5) Cultivated or domesticated species. Feel free to log species that have been cultivated or domesticated, but make sure you have marked them as such. Use your common sense to this end. For instance it may be worthwhile to log that daffodils are flowering, but perhaps not that you saw someone walking their labrador on campus.

6) At the Bodington site? Make sure to log your observations on the Bodington project, which you can find here. less ↑