i actually think it’s better to have the algorithm include cultivated plants at least, since people who observe those are often also newbies who rely more on the algorithm, and i’d rather they correctly identify a cultivated plant than incorrectly identify it as some wild, native (or invasive) species.
Animals are a whole other issue…
You’re right. I actually did leave a Ginkgo seedling photo as wild. Nice to know they’re doing germinating in great numbers in New York City. Ginkgo is a species I’d kind of like to see getting away, to be honest, like the Fuschia at our coast. They haven’t done it yet, though. The adult trees I see photographed are nearly always between the road and sidewalk, mostly on university campuses.
I think I’ve just found a solution outside the place IDs! Using the “Bounding Box” on the Explore map, I created a bounding box to cover the entire world and got this chunk of url:
&nelat=69.53404715698059&nelng=180&place_id=any&swlat=-68.52872745050472&swlng=-180
There a few outliers with broken location, but the ones with maybe “null” location may be removed.
Good point. I wasn’t sure if doing this would introduce new problems, so I wondered if that would be a measure to lessen any negative impact.
I think people with worse internet connections won’t be happy about adding one more thing to mark, but I agree that we need to teach new users to mark captive organisms with reminders.
[quote=“cazort, post:97, topic:8791”] I think the problem here is casual use. The wild / cultivated flag is buried in the Data Quality Assessment (DQA)
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Apologies if this is redundant to add but that’s not quite the whole picture… When uploading an observation to iNat, the observer sees the field, “Captive/Cultivated” (an implied question) with the default response being “no” (logically, as iNat is primarily intended for observations in the wild). At least that is what I see when accessing the app on an iPad. I don’t have the full functionality using the app that I do when using the other version on my desktop but I do see that basic option right at the start of attempting to upload an observation. I assume it’s the same when using the app on other mobile devices?
After uploading the observation, there is another chance for the observer, or anyone else, to mark the observation as “Captive/Cultivated” and that’s through the DQA, as you’ve noted. (That said, I can’t see any way to access the DQA while using the app on an iPad.)
I too suspect the issue is largely to do with “casual” or beginner users being unaware of the request to flag cultivated plants (and some not even understanding the difference), possibly through never having read the Help page. Using the app on an iPad, I can’t even see how to access the Help page.
All that said, your idea would be one solution.
That’s what I see on the Android app too, as well as the website (both the new interface and the deprecated form)
I think that if you make one observation for a plant like that, then you must give that observation the location from where the plant was collected, and not the location where it is potted; just as an herbarium plant or any other evidence taken from where it was originally located. I would consider then this plant as wild, because it is refering to the plant that is still on the wild, and it is still a good evidence. If the location is from where it is potted, then the observation should be marked either as captive or as “incorrect location”.
The Gingko seedlings sprout right under the mother tree. They don’t seem to spread at all unless (in theory) a squirrel might move the “nut” somewhere else. I usually pull up the seedlings in the tree pit which is near the building where we live. The Super there sweeps up, and dumps all the fruit into the tree pit, and it almost all germinates, but who wants 200 tiny gingko trees and an adult tree, all the same small tree pit?
The city is supposed to plant only male trees (because the fruit stink so much and are sticky and messy) but every so often they plant a female tree by mistake.
I wonder what animal actually spreads them in the wild, or used to…
I, too, am a little confused about the precise issue. I thought it was that too many users are taking pictures of cultivated/captive organisms and not marking them as such. I’m not sure there’a real solution here except to make it a bigger issue in the tutorials? How about a larger button that the person uploading must press to indicate status before the organism is accepted as an observation on the site? I just had another user ask me if an observation was wild or captive. I replied with the information that I had about the plant (trillium) and the other user then verified the observation. That seemed to me a valuable exchange of information and reminded me to perhaps add more information next time an organism could be interpreted as captive/cultivated, so verifiers have the necessary details.
Exactly a beginner mode would help everyone
And for some of the IDrs or those of us who have been on here for a while
To greet and offer a helping hand if needed
Issues like what you explaining
And my experience with elms
And palms here in the SW makes with
Wish we had a ( domestic California palm )
That’s obviously wild but out of its range
Like what we do with pigeons Ducks
And so on
You really don’t necessarily know if an organism is cultivated based on the photos though. I’ve had people flag my observations as cultivated when they were not. A few examples:
A sawtooth oak at a local park. The oak is at least 60-70 years old and the park was built in the early 2000s, selectively leaving some of the existing trees. But I suppose someone saw what was clearly a park in the background and assumed the oak was planted there.
I keep ending up with invasive privets and nandinas on my suburban property and have logged them a couple of times because I think it may be useful to document invasive species. I’ve been in this house for 5 years and not plant them and these are new, young growth. People flag them as cultivated.
I’m a wildlife rehabilitator. Some of the animals get photographed after I’ve captured them for rehabilitation. People flag them as captive because they’re in cages, even when the description clarifies that’s they’re not “captive” and that the tagged location is where they were found.
Etc.
My point is, don’t make assumptions just because of the background or location or the fact that it’s a common cultivated species. Cultivated strains of plants routinely naturalize, including into locations where they might look like they were cultivated (suburbs, parks, etc.)
…but all that said, I think the best option to eliminate truly cultivated organisms would be to make it easier to flag observations in the mobile app. A lot of us use the mobile app nearly exclusively and it’s very hard to flag things in-app without digging through and going to the web version.
I’m guilty of doing that myself- so please do just countervote on the obs if you see those, thanks!
Not necessarily. Not everyone considers “cultivated” to equal “planted”.
As I’ve mentioned before, I would personally consider such plants cultivated per the naturalist definition because it both A. “exists in the time and place it was observed because humans intended it to be then and there” (a concious decision was made to spare them from being cleared with the rest of the vegetation, and then to continue leaving them in place) and B. because in city parks (as opposed to state parks or national parks) they are actively cared for by humans through the park landscaping. If your park has neatly trimmed grass and very few “weeds”, then it’s not really a stretch to infer that the oak is also receiving regular watering, weeding, pruning and treatment.
This is frustrating. I have observed invasives (and non-invasive plants that commonly used in landscaping) deep within a state park, and people have flagged them as cultivated.
If the date and location are from when it was still free, then it’s no more captive at that point in time than a fish photographed out of water and then returned. Do your descriptions mention that the date and time were where they were found?
I can mark “captive/cultivated” pretty aggressively when I’m in the mood. Mostly that’s helpful but sometimes I’m wrong. The best way to get me to reverse that vote is to write a COMMENT that says it’s really wild and either explain or write something like “please read the notes above.” That way it will show up on my home page. I will see it, read it, and change my vote. I will usually apologize, too.
Agreed – if the submitter doesn’t add something in the Description or as a comment to put the record in context, then the reviewer has to use their own judgement.
A simple Description note – “Not cultivated; this plant is a volunteer at this location” – clears up any doubts.
I’m not sure about this. In many cases in the wild, an organism will look very different from a captive/cultivated example. In the wild they might co-exist regularly with certain other taxa, or only thrive in competition when certain conditions such as light levels are met, so a plant that never thrives in full sun in the wild might appear in a cultivated collection quite happily in full sun.
Of course, there are some taxa that will be machine recognisable no matter what conditions they are in, a certain leaf size/shape/colour might just not be possibly anything else!
Lots of captive/cultivated observations will help the CV recognise captive/cultivated specimens of that taxa, and lots of wild observations will help the CV recognise wild specimens. There will be a subset of taxa where there is cross-recognition. In the same vein, adult vs juvenile observations would have a subset of taxa where there is cross-recognition
Just for the record, my personal position:
Casual observations do not have to be deprived of IDs. They can be ID’d by anyone just by selecting them (e.g. by clicking on “Explore”, then on “Filters”, then turn off “Verifiable”, then click on the “Unknown” leaf/question mark symbol). Various people here identify Casual observations on a regular basis, from what I can tell.
I’m a bit confused by your comment. If, as you say, there’s “nothing wrong with “rewarding” wild observations that have good identifiable evidence with a cooler name (Research Grade) than casual observations”, then it follows that Casual observations are not being “denigrated”. (To imply in the same sentence that they are being denigrated says that you do think there is something wrong with the Research Grade distinction… a bit unclear.)
Anyway, I agree that most Casual postings were likely made in the hopes of getting an ID, and the selection process I described is one way by which an iNat participant can help with ID’ing those observations.