This is likely biased, but could give a rough idea, counting observations presently without ID in the phylogenetic projects (CV-based sorting):
All: 30 x 35848 = 1075440
Kingdom Animalia: 30 x 4224 = 126720
Kingdom Bacteria: (30 x 9) + 1 = 271
Kingdom Chromista; (30 x 17) + 8 = 518
Kingdom Fungi: 30 x 773 = 23190
Kingdom Protozoa: (30 x 3) + 11 = 101
Plants: 1075440 - 126720 - 23190 - … = 925000
Plants would be ~86% of all observations without IDs (in those projects at the present time).
The only reason I suggested 60% as a rough guess is that I make lots of IDs of Unknowns and I think I see many more plant observations than anything else.
Thank you - that’s very useful! Maybe we need a world-wide project to focus attention on plant Unknowns. On the other hand, maybe it’s more useful for the competent botanists amongst us to be focusing their attentions on observations that just need one more Agree to get them to Research Grade. In other words, observations already at species level.
I took a look at some of the numbers for plants in Europe at one point and thought the results were interesting. These are all for observations with the exact taxonomic level of…
In other words, there are nearly as many observations of dicots at family level as there at class.
(The three families I looked up the statistics for separately are ones where I have found that the response rate for observations ID’d to family is particularly low.)
And just for fun, here are some stats for the more popular arthropod orders in Europe:
I’m the sort of person who likes to determine what’s the highest priority and work down from there, if I have the energy. But in this situation, there are competing priorities. Want to get more good data ready for researchers? The fastest way to do that is to ID observations already at the species level, especially ones you can ID without having to look things up. Want to encourage new observers to get hooked on biodiversity? The way to do that is to work on observations from observers who have recently joined and give lots of feedback and comments, but that’s a slow process with uncertain results. And those priorities apply if you’re a generalist, like me.
I suppose we just keep plodding on, while recognizing that everyone works in different ways, with different priorities. I’d just like to feel as though I have finished something now and then, not just achieved another big, round number of IDs or annotations. But that’s me.
Yeah, I feel the same way. Part of my point with the numbers was that family isn’t a magic rank that will automatically ensure that an observation gets looked at.
Realistically, none of us are going to be able to get any of these piles down to zero, so I try to focus my efforts on a combination of where I feel my particular skills are most needed and what I feel is most satisfying.
This isn’t constant – some days it might be a small, manageable project like reviewing needs ID observations for a readily IDable species in my region. Increasingly, it is bees, because even though I am far from being an expert, skilled hymenopteran IDers are spread very thin and this is therefore what feels most urgent, whereas for plants there are numerous other generalist and specialist IDers who also know at least as much as I do. Sometimes my choices are also based around what will allow me to learn and expand my skills.
We are close to the 3rd anniversary of IdentiFriday! @pisum when was the exact date of the original post?
I’m one of those people that does look at family (or order in the case of Poales). I concentrate on families that I know a lot about. Especially ones where even if I don’t know how to ID the species outside of my area, I can still ID down to tribe, subtribe, genus, or section. @jeanphilippeb projects are very helpful. I can look at the unknown project for a particular group rather than relying on people to put it in the proper family.
I, too, wander from one ID focus to another. I look at everything in my region almost every day, but I certainly don’t get around to every single new observation. I filter for particular species that I can ID easily (usually plants) and that seem to be popular the week I’m checking. I look at Unknowns uploaded a week ago. I’ve started looking at Needs ID plants above the family level. Sometimes I look at jeanphilippb’s projects, sometimes I filter for plants at the genus level. Rarely do I get around to looking at observations that might teach me something, unfortunately - there just seem to be too many common, easy-to-ID observations that keep piling on (I’m thinking of Chicory and Eastern Gray Squirrel, for example).
Some families have lots of stuck observations because of the documentation requirements.
Regards,
Patti Tessler
Documentation requirements? Do you mean that some observations don’t have enough details shown to allow a competent identifier to take them further?
I’m aware that different organisms may get stuck at different taxonomic levels depending on the amount of variation within or between these levels and what features are required for ID for different groups (e.g., typical Apiaceae are easy to recognize to family, but if the photos show umbels without leaves, they are often going to be difficult to refine much further).
But there are lots of observations that end up sitting at family not because the ID cannot be refined any further, but because nobody with relevant expertise has looked at them (e.g. a lot of the European Asteraceae at family may not be IDable to species level, but many are observations of plants in flower that can probably be refined to at least tribe).
I was specifically concerned with the repeated claims by some users that IDing plants as dicots is useless and IDing them to family is useful. This is a claim that needs to be examined. There are many thousands of observations at dicots, but there are also many thousands of observations at other levels as well.
I was thinking that same thing recently, and decided that IDing is in some ways like doing housework:
You get through all the new observations of plants for your state or region one day, feel a sense of accomplishment, and the next day there’s a whole new batch to go through. You clean your house one day, feel a sense of accomplishment, and lo and behold, the next day there is dust everywhere, all over again.
Except that with IDing you can actually learn things. It’s much more exciting to discover that there are more species in genus X than you previously knew, than it is to discover that there are more dust bunnies under the beds than you realized.
Which explains a lot about all those dust bunnies under my beds…
Once upon a time, my mother said to me, “There is always something more worth doing than housework.” Making iNat IDs is definitely more worth doing than housework, in my book. (Also, just wander around your house without your glasses on, if you wear them. It’s what I do and surprisingly there’s much less dust in my life.)
So, I’ve been thinking. (This is what comes of being somewhat laid up with a bum knee - sorry about that.)
I watch the notifications on my own observations roll in and it seems to me that there are many more IDs added to many of my observations than necessary. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that having three agreeing IDs is a good thing for several reasons, even though only two are needed at the species level. But I wonder how many more observations could reach Research Grade more quickly if identifiers who are adding the fourth through tenth ID on a single observation could be persuaded to work on Needs ID observations instead.
When people open iNat, are they opening to an Explore page, so they are seeing both RG and Needs ID observations? My primary iNat bookmark is to Needs ID observations in my region, so I rarely even look at RG observations at all. All these “extra” identifications can’t all be people practicing IDing, can they? Do we have any idea how many IDs, on average, are associated with each RG observation? Does that average vary with taxonomic group? More IDs for, say, birds and fewer for graminoids and powdery mildews, perhaps?
How can we persuade identifiers to work only on Needs ID observations? Within the limits of their knowledge, of course.
When my notifications for my IDs, or following that - get past 2 or 3 I unfollow.
Because iNat doesn’t give us a way to say, seen that obs, people who curate a taxon, use ‘add an ID’ = seen that one. Perhaps the other 4th identifier can tell us why?
Ha! I worked with a woman who was very disappointed in how dirty her house was after her cataract surgery. Lesson learned lol
Regards,
Patti Tessler
Yes, that’s what I mean.
But overall, I agree with OPs point.
There are expert IDers who regularly review certain families or lower taxa for things to be IDd, but these are rare
Regards,
Patti Tessler
This thread includes some comments by IDers about why they might add IDs to observations that are already RG: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/shouting-into-the-abyss-why-do-some-easy-observations-sometimes-go-unidentified/53506/ (Fair warning: it also includes some rather despairing wailing by yours truly about the difficulty of trying to figure out how to distribute IDs more equally and coordinate IDer efforts in a taxon that is chronically short of IDers.)
My purely subjective impression is that apart from users adding additional IDs as part of their process of learning or systematically reviewing a taxon, there are quite a few users who look at observations via their subscriptions (e-mail or dashboard notifications) or using Explore (e.g. generalist users who like to browse recent observations in their particular region and add some IDs along the way).