Associative species

So lately I’ve been thinking about ways to record and make a database for species that are often associated with each other. I’m not sure about how it would work or even if it could work on a platform like iNaturalist, but its a cool thought and would be extremely helpful for people who are searching for a species and want to know where/how to find it.
For those who don’t know what I mean by associated species, they can be anything closely connected, eg many desert species of gecko will only shelter in several species of spinifex in the genus Trodia, and a lot of birds feed on specific tree species.
I’m wondering if anybody either knows of a platform or knows of a way to make this work on inaturalist?

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You can use one of interaction projects or start your own?

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You could use observation fields. I sometime use the Associated observation field but that might not be what you’re. Maybe look at https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields?utf8=✓&q=interaction->&commit=Search and also https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/extra_fields_nz

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I am generally using the ‘name of associated plant’ field for all kind of observations (presumable pollinators, miners, herbivores etc).

But I also created a project for animal-plant-interactions, where the association needs to be a close one and both animal and plant need to have a separate observation to be then linked with each other. Disclaimer: For European observations only.

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@snakesrcool @carnifex There is a similar project for observations in Southern Africa:

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/interactions-s-afr

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I suspect a good place to start would be with pest species on agricultural crops. For example, there are a number of species associated with Brassica crops. Crop pests are well researched, and it could lead you to a wider understanding of species associated with certain habitats.
Merely an idea, a place to start.

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I would love to see something like this for pollinators and the plants they pollinate

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There’re projects and obs. fields for pollinators. https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pollinator-associations

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Thanks greatly for this!

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Also take a look at https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields?utf8=✓&q=host+plant&commit=Search

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