yeah and conversely i’ve had people do the explicit disagree thing because they couldn’t see their preferred character by which to identify the organism, but id used another character or ID’ed it some other way and then i gotta reject community ID if i’m confident. It gets frustrating sometimes.
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And the fungi issue is complicated because some European species have made it over, so there may be a mix of native and European species in some places.
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Yuuup. So you might need to know the exact tree species theyre growing near to get a good id
What “problems” would creating “too many” species complex actually cause? This problem has a simple solution which is already implemented on iNat - species complexes. We should simply have a species complex for each set of species that are not typically distinguishable and have all such observations IDed exactly as this complex. It almost works for the Bumble Bees, needs just a slight touch to be perfect in this case. An alternative would be to allow ID “this, this or that” but that would need coding and we all know how much capacity iNat has for that nowadays …
To me it’s really sad that a lot of my observations are sitting at genus level needlessly just because I can’t get them to single species, but I could narrow it down far more than the entire genus in many cases.
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Sections also kind of function like this as well - its a bit more granular than just genus
the taxonomist-based contingent of inat is opposed to groups not created by their framework, basically.
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The problem is that many of the groups which are morphologically similar, are not those which are monophyletic. The iNat policies state that species complexes must be monophyletic and also have a reference in the scientific literature.
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Meanwhile, other entities that can be defined in the field have been merged. Grapefruits, apparently, are oranges now, even though their lineage does not trace back to the orange lineage. Technically, we now have a paraphyletic species of citrus fruits that don’t even look like each other.
But apparently, species themselves don’t need to be.
I’ve been actively working on exactly that AND enjoy writing about it. I’ve cooked up such a lengthy amount of guff so I can copypaste it much easier than typing “thanks”. If an actual scientist picked up one and needed to narrow the options further it also covers everything science knows so far about one fly.
If you want an example of this in action, everyone working on difficult species ought to see this. Try this one: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/168115800
I picked this exmple because from my perspective it can be taken to species. I’ve tagged an identifier who knows more than I do for his opinion on this one.
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Oh, and all of us do dumb shit here nd there. The right detailed nonsense also makes that kinda mistake very obvious, important when I can think of only two iNatters actively on this genus who are worth tagging routinely if need be.
Species complexes are a great solution for this problem, if aplicable. We spider-IDers have quite some new ones now, we use frequently. I will often push those to RG as well, so it comes with some satisfaction on the cleaning-up-front.
For some taxa, where I am reasonably sure about what I know and what I might not know, I am also pushing IDs back to genus if necessary, e.g. Pisaura in some regions of Europe. It is good to be prepared for arguments, but some empathy (“… unfortunately we can’t…”) and for example distribution maps can be very convincing. If I am pushing back to genus it means I am sure that more cannot be done from the photo… and it means I will also use the DQA “as good as it can be” and push the genus level ID to RG… that has actually a satisfying effect on many observers as well and they are more likely to accept my suggestion.
However, for some taxa the pushback is just too hard for me, so I basically gave up on correcting them (e.g. Dolomedes in Europe…seem to be connected to many emotions and it’s hard for people to let go). I just ID them to genus, might sometimes add a short “this or that” in the comments and move on… lost case
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I always consider if it might be good to get the word “tentative” on each ID I make.
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That sounds like an interesting thread topic in itself.
Myself and others have promising results helping confirm rare species, including likely new species altogether. I have possibles in the Galapagos, the Central African Republic, Antartica… Or they could all be common lookalikes not yet known there.
Recommend anybody interested in this kinda tough ID challenge target those sorts of places. Oh, and if anybody wants to do one in Scotland, I’d be eternally grateful.
Unless you have statistically-strong supporting genetic evidence (in addition to other convincing experimental results e.g. proof of interfertility over many generations in a controlled environment), most if not all IDs are “tentative” on iNat. Geographical or morphological criteria are not to be taken seriously. Dramatic teratologies happen. Intercontinental anthropochory happens.
(This is the sort of extreme angle some IDers are prone to lean to… not a big deal as long as they eat their own dog food ;) Fortunately it’s always possible to stand by one’s views on the issue, by rejecting community ID)
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I’m one of those observers for sure!
I do, however, have some strong contacts at academic institutions all over Scotland. If somebody wanted one sample for some actual lab-based research…
Yeah, I reckon I could arrange 1 piece of DNA barcoding traded for a thank you in the acknowledgements of the paper
I think most everyone here would agree that it’s worth striving toward correct identifications!
I’d suggest that it would be worthwhile to not only provide correct identifications–even if it bumps the ID down to genus or subgenus–but to facilitate education on how to ID (including pointing out that some cannot be IDed to species). For example, in my region there were many incorrect Bombus IDs. So I created a guide that empowers others to provide correct IDs. It’s the “teach a man to fish” parable. Just share the link to the guide whenever you provide an identification. Word will spread.
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This is true of scientific collections in museums also–lots of misidentifications there as well and difficult to correct by crowdsourcing. And from a philosophical view of science in general, all facts are tentative–just with differing degrees of support. 
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Yep. It’s all a matter of settling collectively on acceptable thresholds: what do we accept as a convincing-enough accumulation of plausible evidence, and which very-unlikely-but-who-knows arguments (or sometimes a lack of arguments) we are willing to tolerate.
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Duh. Same is true in the herbarium. (When handed a plant specimen to gather data from, a student worker who helped me with some research laughed, “Any more, the first thing I do is question if the specimen is really what it says it is.”)
On the other hand, some ID’s are correct, at least in the sense that they are as accurate as we can make them with the methods and knowledge we can apply. That’s good. That’s the standard I want to meet. I consider it worth meeting.
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