There’s a lot of discussion about how it might cause problems for identifiers/data users if people post this sort of spatially dense, ‘repetitive’ data. However, I haven’t seen many people actually describing issues it has caused them, and as both a frequent identifier (of plants) and a fairly intensive user of iNat data, I don’t find this to be an issue at all. If someone is creating a specific issue, it’s worth trying to see if there are work-arounds, but otherwise, it seems to me like the concern about potential problems way overshadows any actual problems with people using iNat this way.
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All three of those use cases are valid iNat usage scenarios. If the conditional leads to the same outcome regardless of the state of the conditional, then omit the test!
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I feel like I’ve taken multiple photos of invasive vegetation (whether it’s a monoculture where I’m taking photos of multiple individuals, or a wide variety of invasive plants that have gone unmanaged) on walks just to make a point.
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When it comes to adding good data to iNaturalist, I try to photograph as many different species as I can find. If a few species are particularly abundant in the area I am covering, I may include two or three observations of them. Focusing on only one species is better than not observing at all but by trying to include everything (whether it’s everything including plants, fungi, birds, insects, etc. or everything within one group- like just plants), you are providing a more complete picture of the diversity in the area.
Yes, there are always going to be biases in what you post. For example, I tend to more often notice and thus photograph and observe the species I recognize best, especially if I’m only having a quick look around. But despite these biases, you are adding one more observation for a species and putting it higher up in the species list for that area, which somebody might use to learn more about that area! There are many common species that end up ignored, such as lawn weeds, and don’t end up very high on the species list by observation count. If somebody looks at the plants in their area, I think it’s great to have the more common species up at the top, giving them something to recognize and connect with. Having that sort of quick species list can be fantastic and I’ve used it countless times to confirm or improve an ID provided by iNat’s AI.
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This is a similar issue as to abundance.
I tend to make observations only when something strikes me as particularly noteworthy, as I mainly use my bridge camera which has to be taken out of a case, turned on, wait for it to go through it’s start up sequence, then fix a gps position, only to then have to line up the shot… check, dang, got to clean the lens… you get the picture (excuse the pun!)
Now, sure, I could pull out my phone and use the app. Only problem is, that my phone went down the toilet while trying to photo a spider behind it (no joke) and I have been able to rescue it with rice and hot water cupboard, but the camera no longer works. I can’t afford a replacement.
Anyway, back to my point… When I am involved in an organised bioblitz, my camera is out and working hard. I have 5 batteries that I cycle through, and also have a powerpack recharging kit for in my backpack so they can be recharged while out in the field. I have a very reasonable range (50x optical) with a good sized sensor (20MP), and I have a diopter to drag in the macro. I don’t sleep. I’m up through the night with my homemade moth trap, and putting leaf litter through my homemade berlese funnel. And every time I do a bioblitz, I learn new ways to find things. I see things I never noticed before. I watch the other bioblitz participants walking over the daisies in the grass and not counting them for the bioblitz, and I can’t help wonder how much I still am not seeing, despite all I have learnt since joining iNat!
My point is that we are all at different points on this spectrum of ability to “see nature”. iNat is more about encouraging us to “see and value nature” than it is about accurately gauging the diversity that is out there.
I get this a lot with the bioblitzes I am involved with. Often they say that we can “use this bioblitz as a benchmark and measure how much biodiversity is returning due to what we are doing [replanting etc]”, but the problem is that each bioblitz has different people (and numbers) partaking, we are learning new ways and obtaining new tools to see things, and so on. What we are able to gauge is how much better we as a “group” are getting at actually seeing what is there.
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Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful comments. This started as a casual idea to document a widespread invasive in my area. After reading many comments I was ready to abandon the idea. Why do something that has little value and has potential negative impact on identifiers and the overall database. Then I decided to check the existing observations. There are only 4 observations in one square mile despite this plant being everywhere. This must be one of the “unloved” species. So obvious no one documents it. I am back to thinking I will do something. Possibly take a large-scale quadrat approach and look every 100 meters and if a plant is present. document it. Or maybe, just abandon the idea completely.
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Lots of comments so I’ll keep it short. I have three repetitive “projects” going (not to be confused with Inat projects), Prairie Dock, Compass Plant, and Carex eburnea. I was curious to know how frequently and widespread they occur in my area, mainly north central Arkansas but anywhere I travel. Galium pedemontanum, my “million dollar plant” I treat the same way. I have found all three to be more widespread than expected; none are rare in any sense of the word (also expected). But perhaps in the future, with climate change, who knows what will be valuable? Two related points. First, it all takes time; is it worth my time? Second, data is data and requires energy. How much is excessive data contributing to global warming? Well, I have read that cell phone charging may take something like 10-20% of all energy used globally before long. A quick webcheck says 2% is the current rate. Still, 2% is a lot, equally the amount used for all airplanes!
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I’d put that in perspective. We might also think that it is a new form of collecting info and keeping in touch that was previously requiring resource intensive activities like moving to go and have discussions, printing + buying newspapers and the like.
Neglecting the potentially positive effects of having better info to make choices. Tricky topic.
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all of the uploads help document the variations and the effects of hybridization thereof, besides teaching the AI vision to sort out any future oddities.
But I always hope that a Capparis pro would use my uploads to recognize that there are more than just spinosa and zoharyi in the region. Keeping the hope alive.
That number seems very high. Is that 2% of electricity use rather than 2% of energy use?
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yeah i’d be pretty shocked if that was true.
Please don’t worry about adding too many observations – check out @ck2az (https://www.inaturalist.org/people/ck2az) cool work. He has added over 10K observations of Saguaro cactus! https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/54449-Carnegiea-gigantea. This is a monumental feat that could be extremely useful for monitoring the distribution of this species in the future.
One thing if you are going to record individuals that are right next to each other, you should check your GPS positions regularly and record GPS accuracy for the observations.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/10/energy-consumption-behind-smart-phone
Perhaps I was slightly wrong. The above website states, " Information technology and communications consume about 2% of the world’s energy, or roughly the same as the airline industry, and mobile networking represents between one half and one quarter of that total, according to industry consortium GreenTouch.’
I don’t know where I read the predicted increases. The forecasts really surprised me. However, when one thinks of all the cell phones in the world and (like me) has been to China where everyone uses cell phones for shopping and communicating, or has no other energy consumption aside from burning wood perhaps, it comes into view . . . lots of people use few resources but do have cell phones because they are so necessary in some lives. For example, most of my Chinese friends no longer carry cash. All transactions, and really ALL, are done using Alipay or very few other systems. Unlike the US were everyone wants you to use their system, Alipay and WeChat have essentially cornered the market.
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I would defer to @efmer
Amazing work mapping a entire
Ecosystem what they have done is amazing
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If you look at the map for mallards there are fairly large areas where no one has observed a mallard in the UK. Near where I live there are a number of places with no mallard observations where I’m sure they are present (and I’ve seen them myself), including 3 wetland nature reserves.
I’ve found some fairly common species which iNaturalist’s computer vision hasn’t marked as “seen nearby” so presumably they are under recorded.
Sound like a good plan to me.
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You can use the many-observation approach with iNaturalist to do a somewhat quantitative project. We wanted to assess the baseline vegetation of a property slated for ecological restoration. We gridded the property into 16 squares, then made an iNaturalist observation of each species of plant in each square. Some species (like torpedograss, an invasive) were recorded nearly 16 times in the inventory, whereas others only once or twice. This gave an indication of which species were going to require a lot of effort to manage, as well as which native species were already there to be encouraged. The project is at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/arthur-street-habitat-restoration.
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From my perspective, you probably were using the phone and keeping it charged whether you made an iNaturalist observation or not. Also, unless you walked to the location of the observation, you probably consumed more energy getting there than documenting the observation with your phone.
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