iNaturalist as a tool for urbanism

[AdamWargon]

A good point by @DianaStuder in the post that @jasonhernandez74 linked to:

@DianaStuder

But iNat is a learning curve for newbies. Who may have NO IDEA whether that Look A Plant! is wild or cultivated. Hopefully if the from my garden, street trees, planted at the park - all get mostly ignored for IDs - newbies will drift to social media which fits them better.

4.2 billion people live in cities. Most people’s engagement with nature will lean to captive / cultivated, except on their weekend hike. It is at least a first window into becoming aware of actual nature.

By 2050, with the urban population more than doubling its current size, nearly 7 of 10 people in the world will live in cities

[DianaStuder]

Yesterday I read, by 2035 more than half of Africa’s population will live in cities.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/22/rapidly-urbanising-africa-to-have-six-cities-with-populations-above-10m-by-2035

[AdamWargon]

I’ve been working my way through these two threads shared by @jasonhernandez74:

@jasonhernandez74

We have had discussions about cultivated plants before:

Relevance of cultivated species observations

Is there any possible utility for observations of cultivated crops or harvested products photographed in a market/at home?

So far, this is my favourite contribution to the discussion:

@ram_k

[AdamWargon]

Relevant comments from urban forester @alexbinck, in the second thread shared by @jasonhernandez74:

@alexbinck

I just want to add by saying that observations of cultivated plants have a huge amount of scientific value that I think is underappreciated by many users here. I am an urban forester and I frequently use iNaturalist to look at where species are being cultivated–this can be a useful proxy of their environmental tolerances, and while I’m not sure there is any research using iNaturalist for this right now, it certainly could be done.

It can also provide useful information to aid identification in the event of unknown naturalizing plants. These observations can serve as an early warning if a given species begins to naturalize before it becomes a full blown invasive species, although this is often obstructed by users who label observations as cultivated based only on the location and species without thinking. If there is ever uncertainty I think it is best to err on the side of leaving it wild or deferring to the observer–I have noticed entire populations of naturalizing plants that have been marked cultivated solely because they are not “supposed” to be there.

Finally, cultivated plants have a huge impact on other wild species, and are particularly useful for identifying host-specific insects such as galls formers. It’s frequently useful to take an observation of the host plant because a correct identification can assist with the identification of the wild species in question. And of course, it’s also useful to know which hosts wild species are able to make use of.

I don’t want to rehash the whole cultivated = casual debate in this thread but one frustration is that there is currently no way to distinguish these useful and high-quality observations from other casual observations, including the ones discussed above where the species is merely for sale and not really interacting with the biome in any meaningful way. Another example would be indoor plants–it can be hard to see what areas Ficus grow on the range maps currently because they are common house plants.

I know it has been said that cultivated plants are not main focus of iNaturalist philosophically, but my view is that they are a part of nature and information about them has value, and could have a lot more value if iNaturalist gave a little more thought to how to better manage them.

[mmmiller]

There was a short discussion that touches on this in the iNat Webinar from Aug 29, 2024.

Scott Loarie discussing the question ‘Are only “Research Grade” observations valuable for research?’

So right now we have captive cultivated tangled up In research grade. I know a lot of people have concerns about this and there’s a lot of, I’d say especially for places like New Zealand where scientists want to know even what’s in cultivation there because those have the potential in Island places like New Zealand or Hawaii where there’s the the threats from invasives are so big what escapes so there’s actually a ton of science that’s going on in New Zealand based on planted plants and things like that so that’s a good example where research grade doesn’t map to useful for science perfectly.

https://youtu.be/LGgOeRJIYCs?si=r-EXM9zCdqWoygyU&t=2946

[AdamWargon]

Marilynn, thank you so much for sharing this clip about the value of research grade! Your clip is completely relevant here, and I had forgotten that @loarie talked about this.

You’re adding a ton of value by posting this:

• You’re adding value by highlighting yesterday’s iNat webinar
• You’re adding value by saving everyone the time of watching the whole hour, and
• You’re adding value by bringing nuance to this conversation about iNaturalist as a tool for urbanism

Thanks again, Marilynn!

[alexbinck]

I am unaware of any reasonable alternatives to iNaturalist that are less hostile to cultivated trees or plants. The link above seems to be abandonware with mostly broken links and a few isolated projects but nothing for the vast majority of locations. And it seems to have none of the main features of iNaturalist–most importantly, a deliberative mechanism for verifying species identity and other data.

Similarly, city tree inventories are not a replacement for iNaturalist. They do not allow ordinary people to add information, comment, or to correct erroneous identifications, which are extremely common without the community curation found on iNaturalist. Furthermore, they don’t include plants on private property, which in most places, constitute the vast majority of trees.

If there is such an alternative, I would be very interested to find it because dealing with the hostility of the “wild nature only” people gets tiresome.

But like it or not, users will continue to observe cultivated plants, because the wild/cultivated distinction made here has little relevance to many people. It just comes with allowing members of the public to add whatever they are curious about. Without users who are interested in cultivated observations, the state of iNaturalist would be far worse, in my estimation. Curators and IDers who limit themselves to wild organisms typically lack the knowledge to properly ID and categorize these observations. I have personally corrected many misidentified and miscategorized observations resulting from this lack of knowledge.

And besides, the idea that street trees are not part of nature, which I believe underpins much of this hostility, is philosophically and scientifically unsound. The many organisms who depend on urban trees for their survival do not care whether they were put there by a human or not.

[jasonhernandez74]

@alexbinck

dealing with the hostility of the “wild nature only” people gets tiresome

Which is a subset of the equally tiresome hostility of the “native species only” people.

@alexbinck

The many organisms who depend on urban trees for their survival do not care whether they were put there by a human or not.

And in some cases, may not even care whether they are native species or not.

[AdamWargon]

People around the world have always told stories of “settling” what they called “uninhabited wilderness”.

While this might have been true many thousands of years ago, since then, these lands have been home to countless humans whose presence was often overlooked.

When we turn a blind eye to introduced or planted species, are we truly surveying biodiversity?

[AdamWargon]

I just had a great conversation with some bright new urban planners!

All of their professors have been telling then about iNaturalist, and they’re already putting it to great use!

They use iNaturalist to survey biodiversity in areas under development, in order to decide whether they should be preserved as parks.

They use iNaturalist to figure out which native plants will thrive in rain gardens and green spaces.

(If you’re in Calgary, I was chatting with some members of the CMLC EAST Team)

@AdamWargon

iNaturalist is a fantastic tool for urbanism!

[jennifergrinsdale]

I’m new to iNat. Just started by recording the wildlife I see in my yard. Why? Because I’ve become interested in Native California plants. My yard has mostly Mediterranean climate plants but NO native plants. As I work on replacing/adding native species I want to track the changes in wildlife. I say this to demonstrate how we all use iNat differently and for different purposes. As a new user I think this is a wonderful thing. I can do my part to support the wildlife in my area and others can use, if they choose to do so, my observations for their research or planning activities. I do agree that we should be as consistent and thorough as possible in documenting our observations, even if they are cultivated species. This info is useful too. We plant non-native species in our cities/ yards and then wonder where all the wildlife has gone and why we have landslides and horrible wildfires.

[DianaStuder]

You and I share the mediterranean climate, and you surely have some of my Cape fynbos among your commonorgarden. Just as I inherited from previous gardeners some bright orange Californian poppies - still fighting thru gaps in my ‘chosen’ plants.