Hi! I’m generally new to iNaturalist, and had a question about some of the filters for the observations on iNaturalist. For one of the filters, it has an Introduced category. I was wondering if a plant wouldn’t come up as introduced, would that make it native? Thanks!
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Not necessarily, it just means it hasn’t been marked as Introduced in an area. Many taxa don’t have Establishment means marked for many (or any) areas.
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I’m interested in this question too. Under the FAQs, “Wild” includes “a species that had been introduced to a new region and has established a population outside of human care.” so, wouldn’t that include many species, eg japanese Knotweed, that were deliberately Introduced in the past, then escaped captivity and are living wild unassisted by humans now? Then there are accidental introductions like Plantain, which now comes up as wild. Many of the notorious invasives, eg knotweed or loosetrife, could be categorized as wild now, right? thanks!
Does that makes terms such as Native or Invasive either too hard to define or no longer worthwhile to do so?
Wild and introduced are two different things that are assessed with different data fields on iNat. Wild (vs captive/cultivated) is a property of an individual organism and is assessed on each individual observation. Introduced is an is an Establishment Means and is assessed on each taxon. A species can be introduced, and be represented by both wild and captive observations in the same area.
iNat doesn’t use the term Invasive, but does have Native as a possible Establishment Means.
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super helpful, thanks. where can I see the Establishment Means for a taxon?
Go to a checklist for a location (search a place>about>view checklist), then choose a species from the checklist and click edit.
For example, here is the page for Acacia decurrens in Indonesia checklist:
https://www.inaturalist.org/listed_taxa/40677410
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Hi @craciunr23, wild and invasive are not binary states. A native taxon can be a disturbance coloniser and highly invasive, and conversely many naturalised taxa don’t go on to become invasive.
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