When you post a photo of deer and identify them as roe deer you are doing citizen science. You are the citizen scientist: do you need separate observation of every individual deer?
When you join a project, most list criteria for observations to get included: it could be location, a taxonomical unit and some features. Some ask for annotations, some ask for specific comments. I contribute to a project that encourages a comment about the number of individuals observed.
iNaturalist is one of the prime sources to document locally or globally rare species, with so many people looking and listening. The sum of observations does not add up as a census, it is more reflective of the observer’s interest and the ease of finding the observed species.
If you find separated observations of individuals of the same species useful, please continue; otherwise you don’t have to.
Speaking as a scientist, iNaturalist observations are not especially useful for tracking population density or size, because the amount of effort is unknown and methods are not standardised. It’s great for mapping distributions, seasonality and other things.
Can you give any example of how iNaturalist has been used to monitor population size? I would be skeptical. I would not worry about recording multiple individuals of the same species, unless you want to for your own purposes.
I think you should put records of multiple individuals of a species at a single location as one record. You can annotate the number of individuals in the remarks or in the observation fields.
However, sometimes the abundance of the organism is the important data. In that case, it can make that stand out more to people using iNat as a research tool if you put each individual as an individual record.
As an example, @mako252 has posted over 1000 records of Western Slender Glass Lizards (sometimes many dozens from a single day) for a small area of coastal Texas. This species has disappeared from much of its former range in Texas so the presence of a 1000 records from a few square miles is noteworthy and having that datum stand out by using individual records is important.
But 1000 Snow Geese in one flock would not be as noteworthy. Post them all together as one record.
I’d say iNat’s definition of an “observation” is very clearly one observer encountering one organism, so objectively, multiple individuals in a photo are not “one observation”. From a practical standpoint, however, no one in their right mind will ever duplicate a photo of 30,000 snow geese 30,000 times for each goose, as it would be a burden on identifiers and not further any of the goals of iNat. That being said, if someone is annotating the age or color morph or molt pattern of the geese, and it’s unclear which one goose is the focus of the observation, then it becomes difficult to use an observation with a photo of 30,000 geese for such annotations. In such a case, perhaps choosing a few geese that vary in their annotatable traits and duplicating the observation for each of those, clarifying which goose is the focal point, may be helpful.
As has been mentioned above, another issue with trying to make an observation pertain to multiple individuals at once is that observers sometimes mistake two individuals of different species as being the same species, and then it’s really unclear which one to identify. Imagine a photo with a 5 Snow Geese and 4 Ross’s Geese sitting together, with no input from the observer beyond “geese”.
I can’t say I agree with the assertion that iNat should strive to represent population sizes though. One observer + one organism = one observation, so 1,000 observations can mean one person saw 1,000 organisms, or 1,000 people all saw the same one organism. There are no protocols in place to make the number of observations in any way relate to the actual abundance of organisms, and interpreting iNat’s “heat maps” as indicative of population densities of organisms is a huge mistake.
So don’t duplicate observations to make the population densities “more accurate”, duplicate them to give a chance to annotate all the individuals appropriately, and to ensure that different species aren’t mistakenly lumped together. But use some sense when duplicating and don’t overdo it in the name of being “technically correct” .
Very many possible responses here, according to the possible scenarios. Bottom line, some people never respond to my suggestion to fix their observation: 1) they may not have the notification features turned on; 2) they may not know how to edit their photos; 3) they don’t care; 4) they are thankful that I brought it to their attention, and they act on it, and they tag me in their new observations. The latter folks make the effort worth my time to make their observation a teaching moment, and they are maybe 50% of the incidents. The rest are frustrating and I wish iNat were a little different in its settings for notifications etc. I could drone on…
That’s a pretty good description of the approach I’ve settled on over the years. Generally, for that first photo of the target individual for ID of the bird, plant, bug, etc., I usually just crop down to it.
If you add an ID that makes it clear which you are identifying, it is not a problem to have more then one species in a single photo. iNat says this about their provided response to photos with mulitiple species:
Would recommend only using this with new users and only if the organism is actually unidentifiable. Users are not required to provide cropped photos.
With no ID I just add a comment or put in an ID that covers them all if possible.
A good point, sexual dimorphism can be the source of many glitches in ID. But would it not be better, rather than post the same photo twice, to have a descriptor category that indicates male, female, juvenile or pair? I expect when I see an INat photo it will be of something I can identify down to species, having captured the characteristics needed for accurate identification.
I’m a surveyor of endangered plant species in my region, and we monitor specific sites where the various species have been identified, vetted and reported; and we do make accurate population counts and habitat changes, and compare to those in the past.
Trying to expand iNat information to be used for such an exhaustive, painstaking process was never the purpose. Making an accurate species identification of anything anywhere is miraculous enough, and partnered with location, such data are useful and achievable by the target audience/users.