it would be very useful since a lot of people that don’t have a lot of knowledge could not identify queens or males since they look different from workers
hi, pollen could be added and also stem /bark or root to indicate what part of the plant is being shot, i have some pollen shots and it could make problems for the ai to be able to understand how is that a part of the plant. No indication: the whole plant, leaves and/or flowers are being in the picture.
also for ferns, spores are missing and same for some vascular plants 
like Marchantiophyta, no “leaf” material, no “roots”, no “spores” at the moment. also for ferns, spores are missing and same for some vascular plants like Marchantiophyta, no “organism” material, no “roots”, no “spores” at the moment.
Fusing second message with this one:
also for fungi (if it applies): mycelium could be added and spores (at the moment it’s only gall for them even there are observations of spores). if no spores or mycelium it means that the observation is about the fruit (what we usually call mushroom).
and for lichens, precising if there are fructifications and spores.
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I like to annotate odonata, and (unfortunately for their modesty) a great moment to take a picture of them is when they are mating.
I know that observations have to be of only one organism, and thus the sex is male or female. But can we have an option ‘both’ for mating odonata?
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Has anyone requested that annotations should be removed if there are more downvotes than upvotes? I recently came across such an example, there was a photograph of a adult butterfly, but the observer had wrongly annotated it as “Larvae”. The observer is no longer active now. Even though the annotation was downvoted by many users, it was still there. Would it still come in search if I filter by that annotation for that species?
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There is an open feature request to make annotations behave like DQA or IDs, that the votes add up and can cancel each other out. Community consensus says Adult butterfly.
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it should not, in my experience
Technically, an iNat observation is for one individual, focal organism that is present in all pictures. So you could choose male or female in the example provided, but not both. The observer could duplicate the observation for both mating individuals and annotate them accordingly if they wished.
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I’ve just started looking into the Migratory River Eels that used to be native to my local river and started trying to piece together where they went. This isn’t a feature request or a bug because I don’t know a lot about Eels, but as I’m learning more about freshwater eels in particular, it seems beneficial to iNaturalist specifically to differentiate between the two. One of iNaturalist’s missions is (was?) to emphasize macro identifications, and, wouldn’t you know it, it’s the lack of macro identifiable features on larval eel that has lead to their decline.
Right now, an eel of any species (as far as I’ve checked, but I didn’t check them all) can be annotated as Adult, Juvenile, or Egg. I don’t know how this fits into most eel species, but for freshwater eels, it does seem like “juvenile” is vague.
A freshwater American River Eel (maybe) starts out as an egg then (maybe) hatches into a small, white eel called a “glass” eel. A lot of species of eel begin as “glass” eels and are found and harvested together with the endangered American River Eel. They are each nearly indistinguishable as species and a lack of protection of the general “glass” eels has led to the endangerment of freshwater eels, so this stage is very important to pick out. The American Freshwater Eels in their glass stage migrate to North America’s East Coast then up America’s river system; in my local river, they specifically come from the Gulf Of Mexico. Once the eels start to migrate upstream, they grow big and turn into “yellow” eels. These eels, as far as I know, are easily diagnosed to the species just by looking at them. These eels are not sexually mature; these are still “juveniles.” Harvest of these eels isn’t particularly blamed for being detrimental to the species population. The eels stay in their yellow stage for ~15 years, then they turn to “silver” eels and migrate back to the ocean to breed. Silver eels are mature, breeding eels and are distinguishable from their yellow phase and other species of eel just by looks. Harvest of these eels also isn’t blamed for population decline.
Again, I didn’t mark this as a feature request because I’m not an expert on eels so I really don’t know any more than what I’ve just found out over the last week, but it seems like differentiating larval and juvenile eels is both biologically and conservationally the correct thing to do. I want to know what other people who know more about eels have to say and I’m also curious how other eels fit into the system. I heard some morays have a “juvenile” male phase before they turn into a mature female phase. If they have a larval stage, too, maybe it would be worth labeling males as “juvenile” and the larva as a distinct phase as well.
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Technically, all fishes except for livebearers have a larval stage (the larvae of freshwater species might be called “fry”). With eels, the leptocephalus is the larval stage, and those other stages, as you said, are juvenile.
A similar situation exists with salmon, as there are juvenile stages called “parr” and “smolt.”
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Looking at a salmon’s life cycle, it actually looks like they could use even more than larva and juvenile, lol. I also remember now seeing a difference in “larval” and “juvenile” bluegills, too. So maybe at least all ray finned fish could use a larval and juvenile stage annotation?
It’s also really interesting that non-migratory fish have it, too. I wonder if the stark differences between larva and juvenile is what allowed ray fin fish to become migratory in the first place.
Since the above thread (three posts) discuss proposed changes to annotations, I moved them to the existing annotations thread that is monitored by staff.
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nice, hope it will be read and that votes will occur ^^.
Alright y’all, I have some fungi proposals. We currently have no annotations available and I’m kind of tired of it, so I’m proposing a few that I think would be broadly very useful for us. (I’ve solicited some advice from some other fungi folk, so I may end up adding this to add a few more)
Has Microscopy - Yes/No
Substrate - Wood/Soil/Moss/Grass/Dung/Leaf Litter/Needle Duff/Insect/Unsure
Tree Association - Deciduous/Coniferous/Unsure
Reproductive Stage - Teleomorph (Sexual)/Anamorph(Asexual)/Holomorph(both)/Unsure
Edit: Broadly, these would apply to all fungi. Reproductive stage would be relevant to Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. There are more substrates that could probably be added but those should cover the big ones - IDK the plant pathogen people might have some more opinions there. @sbrobeson @andydonegan
Fungi outside of Ascomycota/Basidiomycota are not my forte, and Lichens probably have entirely different concerns, so I have less opinions on those.
EDIT 2: This is not photo based, but I would also request the ability to annotate observations that have uploaded sequencing data.
DNA sequencing - Yes/No
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Let me preface this by saying that I am NOT a fungi identifier so I can’t critique the biological relevance of your annotation suggestions. I still have a few remarks to make, if you’ll indulge me
- Has Microscopy | Yes/no → I think this annotation is more appropriate as an observation field since annotations generally relate to visually observable attributes of the organism or its environment. Now I assume its purpose would be to filter for basidiomycete and ascomycete observations with microscope photos of spores, which is completely justified for time-saving. However, I don’t foresee many users wanting to specifically mass annotate “Has Microscopy | Yes/no” and if you were to do it yourself before identifying observations, then you would spend precious time that could have been spent identifying.
- Substrate | Wood/soil/grass/dung/insect/unsure → This is a useful annotation although its specific values could be made more general like “Wood/soil/live organism/cannot be determined”
- Tree Association | Deciduous/coniferous/unsure → Since the substrate annotation provides more certain, visually confirmable information about the organism that a fungus might be associated with, I don’t think this annotation is useful. Sure an observer might assume that a mycorrhizhal basidiomycete is symbiotic with the tree below which it grows, but it could well be symbiotic with a herbaceous plant around the same spot, or another tree, or maybe it’s not mycorrhizal at all. I believe that any iNaturalist user with minimum training should be able to assign correct annotations to observations of most organisms
- Reproductive Stage | Teleomorph (Sexual)/anamorph (Asexual)/holomorph (both)/unsure → I assume this is a useful annotation but the terminology is a bit too obscure for the average iNaturalist user (again, I believe that any iNaturalist user with minimum training should be able to assign correct annotations to observations of most organisms). Also, can the reproductive stage of a fungus be inferred from visually observable attributes aside from spore type? This is where my knowledge of fungi hits a wall
DNA sequencing - Yes/No
I think this annotation is more appropriate as an observation field for similar reasons as the “Has Microscopy | Yes/no” annotation you suggested
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So like…
I get what you’re saying, but you’re also basically saying ‘fungi can’t have annotations because we might not be sure and the average user might not want to utilize them!’ Is the validity of annotations really only justifiable if it’s something that the average non-mycophile would want to bother annotating en mass? I realy don’t think so.
Which leaves us in the situation we have right now, which is a ridiculous mismash of observations and projects that is barely filterable because people are inconsistant with using those fields.
Why is it innapropriate for people familiar with a taxon to want the annotations that would actually be useful for them? Just because average users might not know how to best utilize them?
Average users can barely be bothered to take an identifiable picture of a basidiocarp.
(The DNA one is a stretch I admit and more wishlist than something I think would be implemented)
EDIT: Also observation fields SUCK to use on mobile, wheras annotations are actually accessible on mobile.
EDIT 2:
1.) Microscopy is hugely important for identifying fungi. This is a visually observable thing, this is why we upload photos of microscopy. I do not comprehend how this critique is relevant. It is simple enough for the user to annote their own observations that it has micro when they upload the photos.
2.) What would be utility in making this less specific? This is almost a word-for-word copy of the checkboxes I have on my voucher slips that I use for collections and is a fair approximation of the rough categories that most mycologists use when collecting.
3.) Also, tree association doesn’t necessarily mean that it has a mycorrhizal relationship. Saprobes are also often broadly specific to angiosperms or gymnosperms, and yes this is something that is idenfiable in photos. Why wouldn’t it be?
4.) Again, why does this have to be something useful for the broad community and not useful for the people actually looking at mushrooms on the regular. And yes, reproductive stage can 100% be inferred from visual attributes and is, in fact, a huge part of the history of mycology because there are many secies that were described from macromorphology that, upon the advent of sequencing, were discovered to be the same species. The main groups this would probably be utilized for are things like rusts and mildews, though there are other groups it has utilities for.
EDIT 3 (I can’t help myself geeees): the microscopy annotation is literally the most important one to me here, and the most useful. Do you know how USEFUL it would be while identifying to sort by only things that have supporting microscopic imagery? It would be huge.
There are projects for it, but not everyone utilizes projects and some people turn off the ability for other folks to add their things to projects that they haven’t joined.
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My impression is that annotations are meant to capture basic characteristics of the organism in the particular life stage at the time of observation – that is, they are essentially about recording aspects related to phenology and occurrence, not about what is or is not shown in the media or whether details relevant for ID are present. (The first annotation regarding the type of evidence departs slightly from this, but it is again not focused on what sort of details are provided in the photos, but what physical traces are left by the organism in its environment – that is, it is about how we know the organism is or was there, rather than how we know what the organism is).
Since fungi are mostly going to be observed when they have fruiting bodies because the mycelium is generally not going to be visible, having annotations for this would seem to be rather redundant.
I agree that there would be practical use in being able to mark observations for whether specific features are present in the media, but this seems like it would be departing somewhat from the purpose of annotations.
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I suppose I can get behind that argument. I will admit, this is partially me attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole - but they aren’t being used for anything for fungi at the moment.
Edit: if the functionality of observation fields could actually be utilized on mobile or if there was a better way to get people to standardize observation fields and actually use them, I probably wouldn’t care about this at all.
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I agree that the sort of information relevant for fungi is better handled by observation fields, because they offer more flexibility than annotations.
As standardized fields, annotations require a fixed set of just a few options. The challenge with using this for something like substrate should be clear – some might be happy with the broad categories you suggest, others might want to be more specific (not just “wood” but what type of tree). So observation fields that can be set up to record the variety of different types of data that people might want to record for different purposes are a much more robust solution (e.g., some might want to document the general type of substrate, others might want a different field to link to a particular taxon that is the host of a fungus or gall).
But the proliferation of nearly identical observation fields and the lack of integration into iNat’s interface (difficulty finding observation fields or searching for observations that use them) is absolutely a problem.
I know there has been some discussion of whether it would be possible to create standardized observation fields to address this problem (basically a controlled vocabulary), but my understanding is that the lack of standardization was a deliberate decision.
I don’t know if creating a traditional project with either mandatory or suggested observation fields would help address your particular case. If you could get enough fungi people to join such a project, this might both spread awareness about the observation fields and create a sort of standard that many people are using.
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I get what you’re saying, but you’re also basically saying ‘fungi can’t have annotations because we might not be sure and the average user might not want to utilize them!’ Is the validity of annotations really only justifiable if it’s something that the average non-mycophile would want to bother annotating en mass? I realy don’t think so.
I agree that my response gives the impression that fungi are undeserving of annotations. From iNaturalist’s point of view and my own that is not the case. It seems to me that iNaturalist staff has been reluctant to implement complex annotations, so in my mind suggested annotations should be as simple as possible. Also, I assume that incorrect annotations (false positives) become more likely in proportion with the complexity of said annotations. This may not be an issue currently as few users annotate their own observations, let alone others’, and generally those who do are knowledgeable about the organisms they annotate.
Which leaves us in the situation we have right now, which is a ridiculous mismash of observations and projects that is barely filterable because people are inconsistant with using those fields.
That is absolutely fair. Does it mean that what you desire through these annotations is consistency? If so I am totally aligned with that desire
EDIT: Also observation fields SUCK to use on mobile, wheras annotations are actually accessible on mobile.
Good point
- Microscopy is hugely important for identifying fungi. This is a visually observable thing, this is why we upload photos of microscopy. I do not comprehend how this critique is relevant. It is simple enough for the user to annote their own observations that it has micro when they upload the photos
I agree that it is visually observable, but “Has Microscopy | Yes/no” is more a statement about an observation than the organism observed, so maybe rewording this annotation to “Spores Under Microscope | Yes/no” would strike a good balance? I don’t personally believe that it is wrong for an annotation to describe an observation feature (presence of microscope photos) rather than the organism observed, but existing annotations tend to describe organism features.
- What would be utility in making this less specific? This is almost a word-for-word copy of the checkboxes I have on my voucher slips that I use for collections and is a fair approximation of the rough categories that most mycologists use when collecting.
Good point. I think I just had an immediate negative reaction to the wording because I didn’t feel that it was elegant enough. Out of curiosity, is grass a distinct enough substrate to be included? To me it could be subsumed under “live organism” or “live plant”, which would be fine if as I assume (correct me if I’m wrong) fungi are generally host-specific. As such, it might not be relevant to specify that a particular mushroom grows on grass when all mushrooms of its species grow on grass. Ultimately, having more options and more specific options is useful and I trust your expertise on fungal substrates
- Also, tree association doesn’t necessarily mean that it has a mycorrhizal relationship. Saprobes are also often broadly specific to angiosperms or gymnosperms, and yes this is something that is idenfiable in photos. Why wouldn’t it be?
Indeed saprobes exist but in their case would it not be sufficient to annotate “Substrate | Wood” and use observation fields to denote the plant group to which that wood belongs? Being aware of the issues of observation fields that you pointed out, maybe “Substrate” could include both “Conifer wood” and “Angiosperm wood” or to use silvicultural terminology “Softwood” and “Hardwood”
- Again, why does this have to be something useful for the broad community
I honestly just feel like it would make it less intimidating for users who want to develop an interest in fungi and allow them to make valuable contributions regardless of their knowledge level. iNaturalist is kind of all about involving as many people as possible in the collective effort of biodiversity censusing. Also, currently most annotations are straightforward for anyone to make. Most people know a flower from a fruit, a dead animal from a live one, an egg from a feather, an organism from a scat, etc. I know they get iffy within certain taxonomic groups though, for example hemimetabolous insects whose nymphs are similar to adults.
And yes, reproductive stage can 100% be inferred from visual attributes
Thank you for answering my question! I can see how the “Reproductive Stage” annotation would be valuable
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@spiphany TBH I’ve thought about most of your points and the problem just really boils down to having to herd cats and get them to all do the same thing - within the limited groups of people I work with, this works, kind of, but it’s basically useless for the greater bulk of fungi observations.
A project with suggested observation fields is definitely a good thought - and I probably will try to implement something like this. I’ll have to give it a think. But with or without annotation suggestions, I’d probably end up doing this eventually regardless because often, the information we want has even more specificity that the multiple choices I suggested above.
But for example, being able to see what broad substrates a particular fungi is fruiting on or with. At the moment to get that data, I’d have to export the observation fields for the species into a list, pray that people are using similar ones, sort it into a spreadsheet, and go make my own graph manually - if it was an annotation, it’d be easier to get a broad sense of what something is doing.
@frontyardscientist Consistency is a huge thing that I desire. Huge. More people who know how to ID the stuff and the CV ceasing suggesting things that are extremely out of range would be nice too, but those are outside of the scope of this thread
For extra context though, I just spent about a week individually going through thousands of species on a species list spreadsheet to figure out what is actually present in my state - It left me very frazzled, and with a list of dozens upon dozens of species that are not present here that have dozens or hundreds or even thousands obs in the state, many of which are research grade, that I’m going to go through and clean up at some point. Not SUPER relevant to annotations but a good indication of how poor the dataset is for this kingdom in general.
If folks want to reword the micro thing however they want, I don’t care - ‘microscopic features visible’ may be more appropriate since spores aren’t always going to be present.
For substrate and saprobes… I suppose? But this comes back to the issue of getting people to use observation fields consistantly and the fact that mobile users are extremely limited there.
I’m all on board for making things accessible, but it is an unfortunate fact that this kingdom isn’t that accessible. And from a phenotypic perspective, the teleomorph/anamorph thing is probably the most strictly phenotype related thing in my suggestion list above.
(Also I swear I’m not trying to be short with anyone here, I appreciate the conversation! I’m just very wordy and pretty blunt LMAO)
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