Because birds are so mobile you can see a high percentage of them within a day trip potentially versus travelling a much further distance. For example in Ontario we have just over 500 species of birds. Most regional checklists in Ontario include between 200 to 350 species of birds. So effectively you can see half the diversity in the province within day trips in most areas of the province (excluding the far north).
On the other hand, Ontario’s lichen checklist is over a thousand species (1159 as of Mar 2023, according to the Natural History Information Centre). iNaturalist has observations for 1002 species currently. The best place in the province for lichens is near Thunder Bay where a 50 kilometre radius circle got 437 species. Most areas in Southern Ontario are between 100 to 300 species for 50 km radius circles. So realistically it is tough to find more than 20% of the provinces diversity without extensive travel in most places in the province. Lichens are this way because they are highly sensitive to air pollution, logging and trampling.
Lichens are both less popular and much more difficult to ID from photos than birds.
I’m sure lack of mobility and a greater dependence on specific habitats plays a role, but using iNat records to estimate distribution is likely to introduce some biases: there is a fairly good chance that it does not reflect lichen diversity as much as it represents the presence of iNatters with the knowledge and inclination to document lichens and ID them to species level.
I agree with the bias. More observations mean the harder to find species will be found. But the north shore of Lake Superior remains a hot spot. For example, the Toronto area has double the observations but still fewer species found than around Thunder Bay. On a personal basis, I have found about 15% of Ontario’s species of lichens versus 55% of the birds. With both areas getting lifers is rather difficult. My percentage of insects is low at 10%, but getting lifers is still rather easy. Plants are around 15%, but I could get to 20% before effectively maxing out. The trouble with plants on iNaturalist is the number of cultivated species that don’t get marked as such, which artificially inflates the province’s list. The NHIC list doesn’t give a straight answer (from the spreadsheet) as well because it includes subspecies in the list.
There are MANY iNatters in California, and they will frequently confuse the City of Ontario (Near LA) with our province of Ontario, in Canada.
(I’ve been in Alberta for 20 years, but I’m from Ontario )
Lichens are awesome, especially once you understand them a bit, but birds are probably an easier “gateway drug” into nature. You can read why above . . .
@forum_moderators, is there an easy way to see how many iNatters are in California?
I would like to see if the number of iNatters in the STATE of California exceeds the number of iNatters in the PROVINCE of Ontario — especially since the population of the STATE of California is often roughly equal to the population of the COUNTRY of Canada!
Moderators would have no extra ability to tell you this over anyone else.
iNat doesn’t track where people reside. You can always use the Explore page to determine how many accounts have made an observation in a place, but htat doesn’t tell you whether they reside there, or how many poeple from California add IDs or use the site for its data.
Yes, I find it significantly more diffifcult to read and generally tend to avoid posts that use emoji, especially ones that are not useful for getting across tone.
Lichenologists like to say that some lichens cannot be identified to the species level without chemical tests. Of the chemical tests they have in mind, are some of them practical for a citizen scientist without access to laboratory-grade reagents? How would these be conducted?
With lichens a citizen scientist could do the K and C chemical test easily. K test uses lye and C uses bleach. The chemical for the PD is harder to obtain and TLC (Thin Layer Chromatography) is effectively out of reach for the the citizen scientist. A citizen scientist could also do the UV test.
As of yet, I haven’t employed any of these methods, I have just been seeing how far I can go with macro photography with my TG6. Lichens The Macrolichens of Ontario and the Great Lakes Region of the United States has a good section on chemical tests from pages 19 to 23.
Some lichen field guides often have chemical tests early in their keys which means you will have an easier time with those field guides with chemical tests despite the fact that most macrolichens (not microlichens, crustose) can be identified without them. Unfortunately, the field guides available might not be of much use for the Dominican Republic where you live.
Related to the contrast you are describing is the ecological concept of alpha vs beta vs gamma diversity. Alpha diversity is the number of species detected within a local site, beta diversity is the change in species detected as one moves among sites, and gamma diversity is the total species diversity across all sites. Birds might have a very high alpha diversity (because they move around a lot and are often detected) meaning over time many different bird species will pass through a single site. Lichens likely have higher beta diversity (they don’t move around and are substrate specific) and gamma diversity (there are a lot more lichen species out there).
I am not “triggered” by the emojis if you were hoping to provoke users, but I do not see how they add anything to the discussion.
I also do not see how commenting on names that are used for multiple places or pulling out phrases that happened to be used in other forum posts add any particular insights to the topic of the original post.
I stopped reading all your posts since you use emojis so excesively it disturbs my intent to read your contribution and my reading comfort. All because of the emojis.
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is often roughly equal to the population of the COUNTRY of Canada! 
