I enjoyed reading through this old topic, which includes mention of several biases people perceive in iNat data. https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/not-an-unbiased-dataset/16800 Obviously iNat isn’t intended to be an unbiased sample of every living thing, or of anything really. Nevertheless, as a scie…

I work at a zoo that also does research on how species use urban space (among other things). My supervisor used to upload hundreds of hundreds of camera trap photos before he stopped because he felt uploading what was most likely dozens of shots of the same individual deer / squirrel / robin was sta…

I have a pond in my backyard that so many beautiful, large, easily observable different species of dragonfly like to frequent. But they. Will not. Stay. STILL. >:(

You should absolutely keep uploading observations of whatever interests you. My intention was not to influence what people upload, just to better understand the data that result. At the park where I work we have volunteers who run a camera trapping network. I’ve told them no more than one picture o…

I personally limit myself on some organisms that are common for me. I could submit records of Greater Roadrunner almost every day – and, like many, I never get tired of seeing or photo’ing these birds – but they are well-represented from my area. So I’ve posted few records of them. Live small rode…

This recent paper makes for interesting reading on spatial and taxonomic biases in biodiversity knowledge (it is based on GBIF data, so includes iNaturalist data, although it doesn’t mention iNaturalist specifically). Less than 7% of the globe is represented by biological records in GBIF*, when ana…

I would argue community science can fill many gaps, we just haven’t yet found those people who do spend their time in those not represented remote places. And yes, no plants at all, while they clearly fall under same biases, e.g. road sampling.

Remote places are also heavily handicapped by lack of internet. iNat is a data hog and can be very slow … to … load.

[image] DianaStuder: biodiversity skewed to birds, but they are only looking at animals. No plants at all. A layer of bias built in before they even start. True! And no insects either. Although I guess the general patterns would have been similar. I edited my post to mention that. [image] …

Submit the observations you want to submit. You don’t know what future researcher will want, or what future users of the photos will want. Enjoy. And when you can, get further from home to take more pictures, even if they are of the same species.

Biases in iNat data

General

DianaStuder June 27, 2021, 3:48pm 62

biodiversity skewed to birds, but they are only looking at animals. No plants at all. A layer of bias built in before they even start.

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Biases in iNat data

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