I just want to have my observations with all leafmines/galls/aphids/leafspots/etc from each host plant species in one place when needed. As far as I can see I only can achieve it by creating many projects for each host plant and adding observations there. Is it right?
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This is also something I’d like to be able to do.
If you add fields for host/host plant, click on it, choose show obs. with that field and taxon.
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You should be able to do this with Observation Fields. Add an observation field, for example “Interaction->Herbivore of:” to each observation, and you will then be able to click on that and select “Observations with this field and value” to see all observations with that host plant listed.
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Go to an observation that has the interaction field and value that you’re interested in. Click the black text of the observation field of interest. Select “Observations with this field and value”.
I just took a look at a sample of your observations. I would start by annotating your observations with Observation Fields. I just added some Observation Fields to a couple of your observations: to this insect https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/126503729, and this host https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/126503697.
Here are the 415 observations that have English Oak as a host plant: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?verifiable=any&place_id=any&field:Host%20plant=56133
I then filtered those 415 observations by those observed by you: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&subview=table&user_id=igor117&verifiable=any&field:Host%20plant=56133
Once you have your observations annotated you will be able to query your observations as requested.
Good luck!
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Thanks! I was not aware about “Observations with this field and value” thing, not obvious, so I was not using “observation fields”, because I was thinking that there is no way to sort observations by them, it’s not in the search. I guess I have a lot of work with old obs now :).
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It’s a shame that there are so many different fields to choose from, though. I would love it if iNat would merge many of them, because all the data is so spread out. Host, host plant, plant association, associated species, visiting flower of etc. etc., there’s no way to make sense of them all.
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Yes, it’s a lot of work, but one of the great things you have going for you is that you appear to do a good job of making a host observation with each parasite observation. Make sure to use the Associated Observation annotation to link these (an aside, I might have linked your insect to the wrong host plant, since you had multiple adjacent English Oak observations). If/when both observations are Research Grade and linked with an appropriate annotation, they will be picked up by the Global Biotic Interaction database (https://www.globalbioticinteractions.org/).
I read this post occasionally, and I always seem to find something new that helps me improve the utility of my observations: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/add-interactions-to-species-pages/433/2
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For a full list of iNaturalist observation fields GloBI imports, see the iNaturalist to GloBI interaction map
I agree jensu. Early on, in my ignorance, I created Molluscan Mycophagy Associated Species, which really just means “eating”. I hope to phase it out someday. I am trying to curate a list that I will use in my research. I’ll share that at some point.
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With the risk of dragging this further off-topic, I’m sad to see that “plant association” isn’t included. That’s the one I use the most, since I’m often not sure what exactly a creature does on a plant – eating, resting, nesting, laying eggs, watching the game, doing chin-ups, pepping itself to court that special someone etc. etc.
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Actually it’s rather poor made. It should be easily available in a regular search/filters. What if I want to check parasites of a host plant that I don’t have an observation where I could click “Observations with this field and value”? I know I can edit a link, find an id number for plant, etc, but it’s too much trouble to deal with, especially for experts-identifiers. iN should be interested not only in storing observations, but also in their proper identification by experts. And people simply have no good way to know about this system and how to use it. If “observation fields” would be in regular search/filters then everyone would see it there and start using. Very few people using it at the moment.
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I’d suggest to use “Associated species with names lookup” for those cases, and if possible also “Associated observation” to link to an observation of the plant.
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I’m trying to work within a project. When I click on the desired observation field and select “Observations with this field and value”, I get global search results. How can I stay within my project observations?
Open filters, there’s a field for projects, you can write down the name or paste the number of project you use.
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