How to efficiently revisit locations of numerous Observations?

[pisum]

@dlevitis

record whether the species observed there is still present, regrowing from seed or root, or not currently visible

there’s not a really great way in iNaturalist to record absence (undetected). the closest officially sanctioned thing for this is Trips (see Trips feature on iNat - General - iNaturalist Community Forum). some folks have recorded absence using observation fields, but this is not ideal either (see Observations of absence vs presence - General - iNaturalist Community Forum).

if you’re going to record presence, in the context of iNaturalist, it’s probably best to record an entirely new observation, and then link the new observation back to the old observation using some sort of observation field (ex. Link observations - Feature Requests - iNaturalist Community Forum)

@dlevitis

I can then gather data at each point in turn, by adding a coded comment to the observation e.g., “plant not detected post fire, no regeneration visible.” I can then download the observations as a spreadsheet, including my comments, and use those data to answer a variety of ecological questions.

comments probably aren’t the best way to capture data like this. the only way that i know of to get comments in bulk is via the API, and then if there are multiple comments, you’d have to pick out the right comment. so you’d probably have to start each such comment with some sort of unique phrase or code that you could use to help distinguish it from other kinds of comments.

you could add notes in the description / notes field, but only if the observation is yours. using an observation field might be better than description / notes, but sometimes users disallow others from adding observation fields to their observations. more advantages of observation fields are that they can be queried and that they can be downloaded as separate fields in the standard CSV export.

@dlevitis

I’ve gone out in the field and tried this, and I just haven’t found any way to get my phone to cache observations so that they can be clicked on the map (while offline) and show any details about the observations.

i don’t think there’s a single thing that will allow you to do everything you’re talking about, unless you build it yourself. as others have noted, using some sort of offline mapping app that can handle GPX tracks or something similar is probably the easiest way to navigate to specific coordinates.

i would probably get the observations that i’m interested in into a searchable (probably PDF) format that will allow me to review those observations in the field. (i would probably use Print-Friendly iNaturalist Observations (jumear.github.io) and print the results to PDF.) so that way, the GPX track could get me to a particular location, and then i could look up the observation(s) at that location based on coordinates or observation ID.

i would probably track my observations in the field in a spreadsheet, a simple text app, or even just on paper, and then input / import that information after getting back to a good internet connection.