I just posted an observation of leaf curl. Now, from what I just googled, leaf curl can be insect damage, a plant disease, or even caused by non-organic factors. I didn’t want to categorize it as “plants,” because it isn’t the plant I want identified, but the cause of the leaf curl. But leaving it blank might not get anyone to see it. What is the best-practice approach to this situation?
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I suggest adding an ID of “Life.” There are some identifiers who regularly search State of Matter Life observations for organisms that have more than one possible kingdom, including observations with plant damage. For observations with photos of such damage it’s much better than leaving the observation at “Unknown.”
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You could ID it as the plant and in the description indicate that you wanted it to be for a symptom that could have multiple causes.
If you absolutely don’t want to ID it as the host plant, then Life, as @sgene suggested, is probably the best you can get.
Sometimes observations where the initial ID is not the organism that is the real subject get a few people confirming the ID, and then the observation is stuck for long periods while numerous people try to get it back onto the right organism, but it’s a good idea to give the name of the host plant in the description section (if known).
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Right, but if there’s no way to be certain what is the cause, then there really is no possibility of identifying the “right” organism. In that case, as long as it doesn’t violate the observer’s intent (which is why I only suggested it for OP as an alternative), you could ID another organism.
e.g.1, There is an observation (I won’t share it, so as not to shame anyone) with the placeholder “sky”. It is a shot of a blue sky, with clouds and a contrail visible. The “sky” clearly signals the observer’s intent, but is abiotic so it can’t be IDed on iNat. I left a comment that we could possibly ID it as human based on the contrails in the sky if the observer agrees.
e.g.2, I saw an observation for stem fasciation in a plant. Since it could have so many causes, I identified it as the plant (there’s no fasciation without the plant, just like there’s no leaf curl without a plant) and the observer agreed to that ID (though if they hadn’t, I would have withdrawn it…again, respecting their intent).
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I will ID these as Life most often. Over time I’ve learned a little about plant afflictions and can hazard a guess at Kingdom – ready, of course, to withdraw in the likely case I guessed wrong.
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Yes, and maybe repeat this in a comment also, for those like me who sometimes miss the description.
At the very least, hopefully you will get the host plant identified. And if someone responds to the comment and thinks they know what the pathogen is, then you can just duplicate the observation for the pathogen ID.
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In cases where I’m reasonably sure whether I’m seeing plant damage from a leafminer, from an animal other than a leafminer, or from a non-animal, I’ve been I’ve been adding it to one of these projects:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/leafminers-of-north-america
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/animal-caused-plant-diseases-of-north-america
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/non-metazoan-plant-diseases-of-north-america
But those are all North-America-specific, and sometimes I’m not sure which one of them to even add it to. Then I’m just stuck with leaving it at “Life.” It seems like it would be valuable to have just a super-general “Organisms messing with plants” project, for the whole world, where knowledgeable IDers could go rather than wading through “Life.”
Do others think this would be valuable? Are there any knowledgeable people out there who would do IDs in such a project?
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The purpose of adding any ID is to direct the observation to those who will best recognize the taxon, that is those who check observations with that ID. I don’t expect many more people check observations marked “Life”, than people who check every observation in a physical area they check, with, or without any ID. The people you could find, through the iNaturalist system, who recognize the pathogen, are most likely to be the people who recognize the host plant (for plant pathogens). For that reason, I expect the best bet, is to ID the plant the best you can, then in the “Notes” section write “My observation is really for the pathogen. I only started by ID’ing the plant so that people who know the plant, and recognize the pathogen, can ID the pathogen for me. After getting an ID for the pathogen I will withdraw my ID of the plant” or the like. I would also duplicate my note indicating I really want to get an ID for the pathogen in the section asking “why” after my plant ID, to improve the chances that identifiers will understand I intend my observation to be for the pathogen.
I predict that this will only lead to a Research Grade status of the plant ID. I have an observation that fits this category, but I am not willing to risk an untried method and potentially have to delete and re-upload it.
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I’ve tried this, with mixed success. Like @jasonhernandez74 predicted, more often than not someone just IDs it as the plant and it gets marooned there. I see why you’re using this strategy, because nothing much better is available in the current system. I just wonder if there’s a more direct way that doesn’t involve a mis-ID that could become functionally usable. It seems like the project could fill that role, but only if identifiers and observers knew about it and used it.
@jasonhernandez74 @eebee If people ID it as a plant, why not just reply after each person who makes an ID of the plant with the equivalent of “@xxxx Could I ask you to withdraw your ID of the plant? The observation is of the pathogen, but not even knowing what kingdom the pathogen is in, and using the iNaturalist system, the best way I know of to allow people to find it, is use an ID of the plant host to file the observation under, so that people who know the plant, and may know the pathogen of that plant, can find it in their searches of plants to ID.” You could potentially add: “My alternative is to file it under (ID it as) “Life”, and fewer botanists, who know the pathogen of that plant, will search under “Life” for observations to ID.”
Because such a message is likely to be ignored, or maybe even unseen among a lot of notifications. We have had discussion threads about that very thing.
Yeah, I’ve sometimes made a comment like that and had it be ignored. It does work sometimes, but when it doesn’t your observation is pretty stuck.
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