Give me one good reason not to remove all of the Empidonax flycatchers I’ve uploaded and forego uploading any further specimens, since curators won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, even if they’ve been audio confirmed! This is an inherent bias against data subjectively deemed ambiguous, and results in data loss. Curators should read notes and examine context.
Bird data should go to eBird anyway.
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Empids can be challenging to impossible to identify from photos alone. It’s sometimes impossible to ID to species even when you have the bird in-hand for banding. Recording and attaching audio of their vocalizations should increase the identifiability of iNat Empid observations (you say they’ve been audio confirmed, but it doesn’t appear any audio has been attached to your Empid observations).
This isn’t a stance unique to iNat identifiers. eBird reviewers also often require audio before accepting flagged Empid records.
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I don’t think it’s fair to target
here - they have the same options to ID as any other iNat user.
Some groups are hard to ID or difficult to find consensus on. If a user doesn’t find it rewarding to upload certain taxa, it’s certainly their prerogative to not upload observations of those taxa.
I don’t think deleting observations is productive (unless there is some inherent error or something that violates guidelines). Knowing that a member of the genus is present at a given time/date/location can be valuable, even if an observation isn’t IDed to species.
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By “curator” do you mean “identifier”?
If you want Empidonax flycatchers to be identified, there is really only one solution: you. You can become the Empidonax flycatcher identifier, reviewing each observation, reviewing the notes, examining context, and leaving a helpful comment. Eventually, the iNaturalist culture around Empidonax flycatchers will begin to change, and your observations will get the attention you want them to get. Here’s a link to get started on the 23,000+ observations of Empidonax flycatchers that need ID: Identify · Empidonax flycatchers. Another thing to consider: there are already several users who have thousands of IDs on Empidonax flycatchers–it’s possible that the backlog of flycatchers is so large they just aren’t getting to your observations.
I’ve done this process for several taxa, including Misumenini in the eastern US, where I’ve reviewed around 13,000 observations. Now, there is a new band of identifiers who know how to identify this previously very difficult to ID group, and it makes the workload much more manageable. Plus, my observations get reviewed more quickly now.
Just keep in mind that every user of this website is a volunteer–they’re pouring hours of their time into helping you and thousands of other users, and often all they get is railing from disappointed users who think the volunteers aren’t volunteering hard enough.
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Why not both?
Empids hit a number of iNaturalist’s weak points simultaneously.
It’s often impossible to ID Empids up to species just from a picture, but it is often possible to narrow them down to one of two, which is well below genus level. These aren’t formal species complexes, so they don’t show up in iNaturalist’s taxonomy tree. You may not be able to tell if a bird is a Willow or Alder Flycatcher but you can tell that it isn’t Least, Acadian, Yellow-bellied or anything else. Birders (and eBird) can still ID it as a Trail’s Flycatcher (the old name before the species were split) but iNaturalist doesn’t have that option.
Even if you can’t ID the bird visually, you can use context, such as location or time of year. It may be impossible to distinguish Willow or Alder on sight during migration, but they have different breading ranges. During breading season, there’s usually only one option. This is explicitly covered by eBird’s filters, which track likelihood a species being present down to the week. INaturalist’s “seen nearby” seems to lack a temporal component.
Empids can, of course, be IDed by call (in fact it’s mostly a birding by ear game,) but iNaturalist really hasn’t developed its audio capabilities.
There is also the issue of different habitat preferences, which get encoded directly into eBird hotspots, and which iNaturalist has no knowledge of at all. As well as the fact that eBird simply has better reviewers.
There’s no harm in doing so, but I’d never treat iNaturalist as a repository of bird data. The number of sightings on eBird is somewhere between one and two orders of magnitude greater than the number bird sightings on iNaturalist (slightly greater than the total number of research grade observations on iNat,) is not dependent on photographs, and is explicitly designed to be a scientific tool.
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Note that on iNat, as others have said, being a curator has is not related one’s identification skills. Curators resolve taxonomic and moderation flags, and can edit taxonomy and moderate behavior.
It looks like you’re referring to this observation. If so, then I’d suggest adding audio files next time, which is possible in iNaturalist. iNat IDs are available at any taxonomic level precisely for situations where the evidence provided cannot (in the opinion of the identifier) support finer IDs. It can be frustrating, but science is based on evidence, not assertion. I don’t think anyone is necessarily saying you’re wrong, they’re just not able to evaluate the same evidence you were.
You can post the record to eBird, where media evidence is not required in most situations, if you like. eBird findings go to GBIF, just like iNat Research Grade observations to.
I don’t want to derail this conversastion, but I’m going to push back on this narrative/intepretation you’re spreading on a few posts lately. The mission statement here says (emphasis mine)
iNaturalist’s mission is to connect people to nature and advance biodiversity science and conservation.
iNat is totally a scientific platform, but it’s also one that does want to help people engage with nature, and we think those goals can reinforce each other. If you don’t think iNat data are usable for scientific research, that’s fine, but saying iNat isn’t designed to be a scientific tool is not accurate.
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While I agree – and have experienced the same frustration as you when my notes are not considered “evidence” on a par with my photo – I can see why “audio confirmed” would not be useful to some identifiers anymore than “visually confirmed” would be in an observation without media. Notes are (hopefully) taken seriously when they describe what was seen or heard in a way that can be evaluated.
What was the habitat here? We see a white background and some grass. Some notes about the habitat would be useful here, considering that this is during the breeding season when Empids are on their characteristic habitats.
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I check for Willows a few times a year at this site near my home, usually doing a Merlin playback and waiting for the birds to appear and respond. In the past, I’ve sometimes recorded the response, sometimes not. But, they’ve been validated on iNat based on my reports, with or without. When I don’t hear a call, I use the genus. I employed the same method this time, but didn’t record the response. There is an element of trust, here, that works BOTH ways. If that isn’t respected, I have little reason to waste time posting observations of these organisms here.
See redacted notes on the observation posted.
I never said anything regarding iNat’s use as a scientific tool. I have students doing avian DNA barcoding, and they use both eBird and iNat data to assess their observations.
I wasn’t responding to you regarding that topic, I was using the Quote function to respond to another user. You can select text, click on Quote, then write a reply to that text below it. It removes the need to make multiple posts responding to multiple people. So I responded to both you and the toher person in one post. Kind of not an obvious feature but a really helpful one on Discourse to keep discussions looking more clean.
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and is the identifier’s choice, to ID on the basis of the evidence available to them - as per iNat guidelines.
Perhaps you (won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole), could help with the Needs ID backlog for your preferred taxon? Give me one good reason not to
? Curators are not employed by iNat, or necessarily scientists.
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I’m moving away from eBird because it doesn’t allow users to license their images with a free license and doesn’t provide a publicly available API.
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iNat is a community platform and evidence is meant to be reviewable by the community. I think it’s reasonable for identifiers to add an identification without audio now that the notes have been updated per jasonhernandez74’s suggestion, but the original notes of “AUDIO CONFIRMED!!!” is not something that can be assessed in any way (and violates the “Good Form” guidelines of iNat). But also no one is required to identify any observations they don’t want to, regardless of the reason.
Quite frankly, it seems that you are the one not extending a level of trust here. I see no demands or disgruntled comments from identifiers on your Empid observations, and I see no attempt by you to tag or engage knowledgeable identifiers. It appears you posted an observation of a notoriously difficult to ID taxa, and when you didn’t get an identification in the time frame you expected, you came to the forum to rant about it in an accusatory fashion.
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Why post Empidonax here when they’re so difficult to ID?
First, the detailed notes some people leaves on Empid observations suggest that some Empidonax in some situations can be ID’d from a photo if it shows the right traits. At least, many can be ruled out.
Second, notes should be taken seriously, though each identifier can decide they don’t want to use them for any given observation. As much helpful detail as possible should be included in the notes. I think, “I heard the distinctive ‘fitz-bew’ call” would give more confidence than “audio confirmed,” though I suspect that varies among identifiers. Notes on habitat could really help in this group.
Also, knowing whether there are genus-level changes in behavior, occurrence, or timing has some value. Even if the post never reaches RG, or if it gets there at the genus level, it may have value for some researchers.
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The lack of iNat complexes within the genus (if real) could be remedied, maybe. Somebody could look into phylogenetic studies of the genus and see if a complex or two could be set up, then ask a curator to do this, providing the evidence. (And realizing that curators, too, are volunteers.) The complex would have to be a pair or small group of species that are each other’s closest relatives and also look very much alike even by Empidonax standards.
If this post accurately reflects the primary article it cites, and if these results are consistent with other studies, it looks like at least 3 complexes could logically be established, one with the difficult Alder/Willow pair (perhaps also including the White-throaded Flycatcher): http://www.appliedbioacoustics.com/evolution/evoltree1topology.html (Sorry. I’m so far behind in several things that I can’t take this on now.)
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The general rule with species complexes is that there is some ambiguity about where the species boundary is. For all the difficulty humans have identifying Empid species by sight that really isn’t an issue here. The birds themselves have no difficulty telling each other apart and thus maintain separate gene pools.
The whole reason Willow and Alder Flycatchers were split in the 70’s is that the males have distinctly different calls (FITZ-bu vs re-BEER) and the females only respond to the appropriate male. They also have different ranges, habitats, and some physical differences that can be seen in the hand, but not (usually) in the field. There’s no real doubt that they’re completely separate species; it’s just hard to distinguish them with nothing but a photo.
The same applies to any other visually similar Empid (or even other flycatcher genera south of the border) pair. They don’t form species complexes so much as “visual complexes,” which can still be separated by call or close examination, and which seem to have no trouble telling each other apart.
Empids are one of the top two North American ID challenges, but they’re not a taxonomist’s nightmare. That honor goes to Laurus gulls. (The other big North American ID challenge.) IDing gulls is so hard even they aren’t good at it. They hybridize with distressing regularity. There are places in the Pacific Northwest where Western and Glaucus-winged Gull are outnumbered by their hybrid offspring. Herring gulls in the Atlantic mix and match with at least 5-6 other species. The concept of a species complex does apply here.
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I don’t think “groups of species that interbreed” is how species complexes are universally defined. There are many complexes/species groups (iNat treats them the same) for various arthropod taxa and it has nothing to do with a tendency for these species to hybridize with each other, but precisely with the fact that they are closely related species that look similar enough that they may be difficult to tell apart even with a specimen available.
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