But have you considered that iNaturalist is also a fantastic tool for urbanism?
iNaturalist is a great tool for identifying which species of trees line our city streets, especially in the context of urban mapping for tree cover etc.
Itās another way to promote the platform, and possibly to partner with wealthier cities that have funding to promote these types of activities (urban biodiversity surveying)
I love recording street trees in my area - not just because you find some interesting species, but because you often end up picking up odd āsecondaryā organisms.
Silver maple and honey locust are both American, fairly popular street trees in Great Britain - and when somebody said āhey, look out for this gall on thereā I was able to find Dasineura aceris and Dasineura gleditchiae, two American gallers on old images of street trees - both galls Iād overlooked before as just āsome generalist leaf-curler, probablyā. Both of these are massively underrecorded species (nobody noticed the former until 2016, and NBN Atlas has just 8 of the former for the entire country) - lists of street trees do sometimes prove useful to know where to look to track them (especially since these fairly benign gallers sometimes seem to be spreading in the same ways as genuinely invasive species like the horse-chestnut leaf miners did).
There is perhaps another reason for this though - Tree-of-Heaven is starting to become invasive in the UK; self-sowing in London and the South, and still fairly benign in the North. The line of where itās a pest and where itās not is creeping further and further north as climate change hits - and thereās one line in a risk assessment for it thatās stuck with me:
However, these recording schemes would not normally include planted trees except if in a āwildā situation (Preston et al. 2002). No data are available about the extent of planted A. altissima in gardens, parks and as urban street trees which are potential sources of further establishment and spread.
No data is available about the species which could well be the next big problem, like it already is in North America or Southern Europe? Seems like a pretty major hole to fill, in at least some way!
I donāt think mapping urban street trees is the best use of iNat. There are existing programs and resources that are specific to that need. Opentreemap is a good place to start. Many cities already have maps of all the street trees they have planted and most are available to the public if you can find the right person to ask.
OTOH, does it have any downside for iNat if people use it that way? Many people live in cities. If we encourage people to distinguish between cultivated and wild organisms, I think weāre good.
Benefits I see:
urban engagement.
gardeners can document how their gardens are growing and get interested the flora their gardens support.
phenotype data on cultivated species can be useful.
An aside, but it strikes me that observations of wild organisms are useful with lower GPS accuracy than observations of cultivated species, where weād really like this to be as accurate as possible. Not sure what to do with this thought. Iāve noticed that my GPS accuracy can vary wildly based on context, for example whether my phone is using cell phone relay vs actual GPS signal for location awareness. Not sure if thereās any way iNat can tell which is which and report accuracy accordingly?
Yes. There are already resources for identifying and recording cultivated organisms. Clogging iNat up with street trees, garden plants, indoor plants, pets, and zoo animals would quickly bury iNatās intended goals.
iNat does not encourage observations of captive/cultivated organisms. There are already many existing resources for identifying and documenting captive and cultivated organisms. If that is what you want to do you should use them. That is their intent and purpose.
Indeed. My local council has detailed records of every tree in every public space (and probably many on private property too). When I unloaded on them about the rate of removal of beautiful old natives that were habitat for many many creatures, the guy I spoke to was able to pull up details of every tree that was or had been in the area, along with the excuse for why they had or were going to cut it down, and what if anything they were intending to put in its place.
Some of the excuses were very unsatisfactory - but they do also impose severe penalties on people who poison or remove Significant trees on private property or the adjacent verge without prior planning permission, so they are tracking much more than just what they have planted.
Iām not sure how āsuccessfulā (or determined) they are against the efforts of the Guerilla Gardeners though - the people who plant native trees in public places, often taking careful measures to make them look like they are seedlings planted by the council so that council workers will protect and not remove them :)
Well, you are right but who said that wild species do not have to do with urbanism? The latest researches on wild flora and fauna in cities have highlighted the overall positive effects of many wild organisms on human wellness and cities liveability.
The intent of iNat is to encourage people to engage with nature.
Iāll clog it up with whatever nature I engage with.
If that gets to be a problem for othersā¦ there are other sites that the others may use.
The intended goal of iNat is to encourage people to engage with nature. Most people live in cities. What they see will be street trees. It is the first step.
The next step is encouraging them them to see - the bug on the tree, the weed on the pavement, the wildflower on the verge ā¦
Mapping planted trees in cities is certainly useful, also in those cases a map of cultivated trees already exists. As regards, in some Italian cities many trees face the risk to be cut down. The frequent justification is that they represent a risk for citizensā safety. Moreover, many so-called informal green spaces may host many valuable tree species and old tree specimens, both wild and planted in old times. Unfortunately, at least here in Italy, such green spaces are seen by city councils just as good surfaces suitable for further urbanization. Then mapping the biodiversity in such green spaces could be useful to try to stop urbanization and to save valuable old tree specimens that provide foundamental ecosystem services.
On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that particular care must be put in marking as captive/cultivated all the observations of trees/shrubs that are clearly or just thought to be non-wild. Unfortunately, cities and urban parks are often the area where blioblitzes/events or other āeducationalā activities take place and are held by really unexpert people. It is really sad to see that so many users (who usually quit iNat just after the event is finished) are made to photograph just cultivated trees (often with ridiculously wrong identifications) whereas also managed urban parks usually host a number of wild species.
yet!
