Settle a debate between me and my roommate. We are determining whether or not microscopic organisms within his fish tank count as “wild” under iNaturalist terms. About two months ago, he bought live plants to put in his tank, and with the plants came some microorganisms such as copepods and Naididae worms. Unlike the fish and the plants, which are intentionally breed or raised for human aesthetics, these microorganisms at least in my eyes are reproducing and occupying a niche create by humans, and we are not deliberately trying to raise them.
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As I understand it, according to iNat guidelines, organisms are classified as “wild” if present without deliberate human intent even in artificial environments and “captive/cultivated” if intentionally placed or maintained.
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By that definition, the domestic guppy fry I once accidentally moved from a pet store tank into my home aquarium (hiding on a plant, probably) would be wild, and that doesn’t seem right.
Or does the fact that they were being raised in captivity make them not wild, despite me having not placed them where they are on purpose?
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That’s exactly the same as bringing weed seeds into a greenhouse along with cuttings of other plants, or bringing cockroaches into a building along with a box of books. The organisms are wild so long as they were not deliberately brought or maintained by a person.
So long as you aren’t deliberately feeding the guppies, treating them for disease, avoiding killing them while cleaning the tank or anything similar, they are wild. They just happen to be wild in an artificially maintained ecosystem, but that is even more true of a greenhouse weed or a household cockroach. The only difference is that you presumably aren’t taking steps (and failing) to kill your guppies, but that doesn’t make them any less wild.
Look at it like this - if everyone had a fish tank, and guppies became ubiquitous in all fish tanks, we would certainly consider them wild pests, just as we consider cockroaches or greenhouse weeds to be wild pests.
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Almost all definitions, if examined closely enough, have edge cases that don’t feel right. iNat’s definition is no worse than most others in this regard.
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Definately wild by the guildelines, I agree. 
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Wild in the same way greenhouse weeds or pests in houses are.
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It just occurred to me that it would be more fun if we have a poll, especially since I can just show my roommate the results, instead of gleaning through the comments section. Feel free to insert your answers here.
- Yes
- No
- It’s complicated
0
voters
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Do plant pathogens on garden plants count as captive? Weeds that benefit from watering lawns?
I could go on and on…if you didn’t intend for it to be there, it’s wild.
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I think we need a third category for thing such as weeds in greenhouses or this barnacle in my food https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/319235189 , where it’s clearly not intended to be there, but also it is only there because of human intervention and clearly could never survive there without a human maintained environment.
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I think a third category would just complicate things more than they already are. It’s already very clear where things fall over 99% of the time (and even these are pretty clear IMO).
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The trouble with that distinction is that applies to most agricultural weeds and pests. For example, are dandelions growing in a park in New Mexico not wild? How about fleas living on a pet dog? In both cases, the environment is human maintained, and if the park stopped being watered or the dog stopped being fed, the other species would never be able to survive. In my mind they are still clearly wild, to the point that humans are actively trying to eradicate them.
That’s why the word ‘deliberate’ is so important. If the animal is only there because a human is taking steps intended to keep the animal there, it’s not natural, not wild. If the human is taking steps to benefit themselves, and the animal also benefits, that’s a wild commensal.
The barnacle in your food is an interesting case precisely because it clearly won’t survive to reproduce unless it becomes captive. IOW, unless a human takes deliberate steps to keep it alive, it will soon be dead, but at the exact time of the observation the organism is strictly wild.
The difference to me is that we know that your barnacle will never reproduce as a wild organism in the location of the observation, so the observation doesn’t serve much purpose in determining wild range. The guppies and copepods and cockroaches referred to in previous post, OTOH, will all go on to reproduce indefinitely just where they are regardless of what humans intend for them to do.
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I posted a similar question a couple of years ago and the response in that thread was basically the same as the responses here. It’s a grey area, but according to iNat’s guidelines they’re wild.
I wasn’t going to make a new post about it, but there’s a similar situation that’s been bugging me, and since this topic is again being discussed I’m going to chime in:
Detailed scenario with PII removed by moderator
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In those type of egde cases I draw the line somewhere here: Does someone take care for the organism? Things like feeding, watering or removing competitors deliberately to make the organism in question thrive.
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I come from the perspective of already semi-extensively observed microscopic aquarium life- and for a lot of people, its the only way to observe diatoms and plectid worms.
The diversity in fish tanks (especially dirty ones) is surprising.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/266813564 theres some really interesting stuff, and I don’t want this resource to be blocked.
Sharp edge. Both stances are solid and I’ve found myself leaning both ways reviewing your case. I do believe this there is some ambiguity with the pot comparison only because these are indoor curated environments where conditions are substantially more controlled than what an average potted plant with fungal association would encounter. As mentioned, differentiating accidental opportunism and managed captivity is also key. For me this boils down to the subjective nuances of defining data purity.
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This is pretty much the conclusion I came to, when considering organisms arriving in ballast tanks of ships. It’s basically similar to many smaller organisms hitching a ride on a larger one.
Agreed. It seems to me that all the observations I mentioned fall into the accidental opportunism category.
Detailed reference calling out other users on iNaturalist removed by moderator
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That seems like it would fall under iNat’s prohibition on sockpuppet accounts:
Suspendable Offenses
Let’s just get these out of the way at the start. Any of these behaviors are grounds for immediate suspension without warning.
…
- (!) Sockpuppet accounts. A sockpuppet account is an additional account set up to evade suspension, circumvent restrictions in functionality, or other forms of bad behavior, like confirming your own identifications. This does not include multiple accounts set up for multiple roles, e.g. a personal account and a professional account.
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Certainly concerning behavior if true.
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