(Not) Automatically Marked Cultivated - Is this Expected Behaviour?

General
1

This post has arisen from something I noticed while IDing for the CNC, specifically in Trinidad, Bolivia, but the location is perhaps irrelevant.

Certain species are marked as cultivated automatically by iNat when IDed, but what I observed was that if the first ID was more general such as “Flowering Plants”, “Dicots”, or the like, then the automatic Cultivated was not applied when the plant was subsequently IDed. I mentioned this in a flag on the CNC, and @tonyrebelo suggested it may be a bug and asked for examples.

So here are some examples I’ve found:

Sanseveria
Marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/352733136

Not marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355864670

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355782616

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/352942038

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/352860423

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/352733335

Ixora
Marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355849008

Not marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355852183

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355850389

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355848679

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355837879

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355736396

Hibiscus
Marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/354483154

Not marked automatically

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355911687

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/354803474

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/354708005

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/354494673

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/353908245

Hammerleaf frangipani
Marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355859271

Not marked automatically:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/355902441

So the question is, is this expected behaviour? Or is it a bug?

2

Not a bug, AFAIK the auto-captive vote depends largely on location. I’ve worked to tag many species that never or very rarely naturalize in California so that there’s less effort wasted identifying them and tagging them as captive.

If you’re patient, you’d basically have to go through and mark a large percentage of captive observations for a particular species, and the next time the geomodels update, it may get auto-voted captive from then on.

I think it needs to be something like 70-80% of observations need to be tagged as captive in the smallest unit of a place (county, province, etc) before auto-vote is enabled.

More notes here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/why-are-some-taxa-automatically-captive-cultivated/15638

Make sure you’re only voting observations as captive if you have reason to believe they’re either planted and/or don’t naturalize in your area however, there can be surprises, like cork oak being naturalized in CA while also being widely planted.

Big caveat: I believe the observations need to be at species level to get auto-voted for the most part

3

no.

I had in Ostrava CNC for example “Rhododendron sp.” (all the Garden Rhododendron), which was automatically marked ‘cultivated’.

But I think, they must be marked really concequently, to achieve that.

4

My point was that the species I mentioned in my post were automatically marked as captive in that area, EXCEPT when someone had added a more general ID first.

I just got notification about one of the Hibiscuses I mentioned above, which you have now added an ID to. And I see that with the second Hibiscus ID, iNat made it cultivated. So maybe if there is a more general ID, 2 IDs are needed to trigger an automatic “Cultivated” setting.

5

I guess if it’s based on CID (if any), that would make sense, actually, since starting with a higher-level ID would mean that the species level ID would still have a CID at whatever higher level it started at?

6

I think @grampianhiker is correct. When I’ve noticed this issue (not during the CNC), it’s because the Community ID is not a taxon that iNat automatically marks as captive/cultivated.

7

That makes, sense, thank you!

8

I don’t think this is right. Observations with only an initial ID by the observer don’t have a CID and can still be marked casual automatically. Also see

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/automatically-marking-as-casual/57634

and https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000170240-why-is-inaturalist-voting-that-my-observation-is-not-wild-

I would guess that the OID is what triggers the vote, but not 100% sure.

9

I guess that’s why I said ‘if any’ - maybe OID works until there’s a CID?

(Just attempting to work out a logical explanation for the observed facts.)

10

I’m happy that @grampianshiker has solved the issue. It is the Community Taxon that is stopping the automatic marking as cultivated.

When there is only one ID, there is not a Community Taxon, but if that ID is a genus/species that iNat marks as cultivated in that location, it will. But when there is a “Plants” or whatever ID followed by a genus/species ID, the Community Taxon exists and is “Plants”, so the automatic marking doesn’t happen until another genus/species ID is added and the Community Taxon becomes something that is automatically marked.