Forgive me if this has come up before. In my experience, curators do not, by default, set a link to GBIF when adding new taxa. I usually ask that they do this explicitly, providing the relevant URL, but it seems as though most don’t know how to do it, or even why you would. Often, they simply ignore that part of the request. Is there a page somewhere on iNaturalist that includes instructions for doing this task, so I can include it in the flag?
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Nope (as far as I’m aware), I’ve never seen it documented
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I think you need to be a little more specific in what you are expecting. The “Create a New Taxon” page does not have a field for inserting a link specifically to GBIF. Once that page has been submitted and the name created in iNaturalist’s taxon database it is possible to create a link to the taxonomic scheme for the new name. That can be done by following the link “Taxon Schemes” from the Taxonomy tab of the organism’s taxon page. Note, however, that this latter page is not for creating a link specifically to GBIF. It is for adding the taxon to one of the several schemes supported by iNaturalist, of which the GBIF scheme is only one.
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I’m not aware of it being documented either.
@mrtnlowr they’re referring to Taxon Schemes, which you can find on the Taxonomy tab:
e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/75858/schemes
I’m not actually sure what function they serve other than adding a layer for GBIF occurrences to the taxon page maps.
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Hi Cassi,
Thanks for the correction. I’ve now updated my post to reflect your comment.
Having just tried to use that page and entering what I thought might be the correct entries to each field I got a 404 response delivered by the search mole. So what do the second and third fields require as input? Wouldn’t be difficult to include a short description alongside each input box. That might even encourage curators to complete the form.
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I agree that this process needs to be better documented (and I really think it’s ripe for a UI improvement). Here’s what I do:
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Open an iNat taxon page and navigate to the Taxonomy tab, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1361011-Gelasine-uruguaiensis#taxonomy-tab . If the count next to Taxon Schemes is 0, there is no association with GBIF. If the count is >0, there may be an association with GBIF (or another taxon scheme), but it may still point to the wrong GBIF entry.
Note: I’ve noticed recently that there seems to be a delay in updating the Taxon Schemes counter, so that it still shows 0 for some time after I add a GBIF taxon scheme. -
Open GBIF, search for the same taxon name and open the GBIF taxon entry, e.g. https://www.gbif.org/species/2746636
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Copy the GBIF taxon id to the clipboard: 2746636
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Back on the iNat taxon page, click “Taxon Schemes”.
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On the next page—e.g. “Schemes including Gelasine uruguaiensis”—click Add to a Scheme.
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On the next page, select “GBIF” as the Taxon scheme and enter the GBIF identifier in both the “Source identifier” and “Taxon name” fields.
Note: I’m sure there’s supposed to be a distinction between these fields, but I have never understood it, and I have always found this to work by entering the same value in both fields. -
Click Save. This will take you to a page with two conflicting messages: “Your taxon scheme taxon was saved.” And, less helpfully, “Sorry, that doesn’t exist! Even our dedicated search mole couldn’t find anything!” Do not despair. This always happens.
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Click the back arrow in your browser three times to navigate back to the taxon page. Click the Map tab and refresh the page. It may take a couple minutes for iNat to sync locations from geo-located GBIF occurrences. Once that has happened, refreshing the Map page will now show a checkbox option for “GBIF Locations” in the map legend.
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Thanks for posting about this! I’m one of those curators who did not know about linking to GBIF so this is a valuable education. Now that I know, is there a way to find all the taxa I’ve ever created so I can go back and link them?
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When I click “Add to a Scheme”, the taxon name field preloads with a number. It appears to be the unique identifier for the active scientific name. (i.e., if you go back to the taxon and click “edit” next to the scientific name, the same number appears in the URL)
I had not really been paying attention to taxon schemes as I thought they were largely rendered obsolescent by our turn to global taxon frameworks, but the mapping function makes the GBIF scheme useful, at least.
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You can go to https://inaturalist.org/flags, change resolved to “Yes” and enter your own user ID to scroll through your back catalog of resolved flags if you want to go through and backfill them. I’m not sure where, if anywhere, the new taxa creations are exposed, though.
Thank you, @rupertclayton. I think I’ll use this in future!
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I’m sure that’s not necessary, @zygy! 
The mapping function is super useful. I don’t know, perhaps more so in some parts of the world? I’m amazed it isn’t better appreciated.
I agree the mapping function is useful but only in those cases where the GBIF records are distinct from those uploaded from iNaturalist. For my taxa of interest, Cactaceae, >75% of the records on GBIF are derived from iNaturalist observations.
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