Opportunities to Assist Researchers - wiki

[mws]

Help researchers gather data and specimens

This is a list of research projects or researchers who could use the help of iNat users. This help can be searching for specific taxa, recording unique behaviours, or collecting samples or specimens. Make sure to be aware of collection laws when adding research to this list - some species are protected, and it is illegal to collect specimens of them. Don’t add unlawful research to this list.

*** Read before replying ***

1. This topic is a wiki. Edit this post directly. Don’t reply with your research projects. The edit button is in the bottom right corner of this post.
   • If you are new to the forum you may not see the Edit button. Send @forum_moderators a private message and one of them can edit your “trust level”.
2. Don’t use this wiki to discuss the ethics of collecting, please. It would be best to put that in a different thread.
3. Feel free to edit any part of this wiki, past adding new research to the list. If something is formatted poorly, or not phrased eloquently, then fixing that up will help maintain the readability of the wiki.

List Entry Format

Try to include the following information in each entry to the list:

1. The taxon being researched, ideally using the scientific name
2. The name of the project or researcher for whom the data is being collected
3. A link to the instructions for collecting your data properly, the homepage for the project, the iNat profile of the researcher, or whatever other “first step” you can link to.
   • If there are no instructions, please specify the best way to get instructions
4. If more than one link is needed, add them as extra numbers like this: [1], [2], [3]…
5. The form of the data being collected. These could be iNat observations, videos of behaviour, leaf/seed samples, specimens, or whatever else.

Example:

• Lorem ipsum for @mws’ Lorem sp. Example Project, [1] - Specimen

For the Researchers Reading This…

If you want to add your own project to this list, please do! If you do choose to do that, or if your project is already on this list, ensure that the information provided is accurate, and that the instructions specific to your project are embedded in your list entry.

---

Plants

• Non-vascular plants
  • Physcomitrium (“goblet mosses”) for PhyscoHunt - Observations and live cultures
• Vascular plants
  • Ginkgo biloba for The Smithsonian Leaf Survey - Leaf samples from wild or planted trees
  • Thlaspi arvense (“field penny-cress”) for John Sedbrook - Seed samples - Contact John for instructions
  • Acer rubrum (“Red maple”) for TASpeR, [1] - Leaf samples, one from summer and a second from autumn
  • Chestnut tree leaf and twig samples for The American Chestnut Foundation https://acf.org/resources/identification/
  • Nanbu-so (Achlys japonica) phenology and ecological relationships, for Jason Hernandez Looking for East Asian botanists for Achlys japonica

Arthropods

• Myriapods
  • Diplopoda (millipedes) for Derek Hennen - Specimens - Contact Derek for instructions
• Crustaceans
  • Amphipoda for Andrew Cannizaro - Specimens - Contact Andrew for instructions
  • Caecidotea (Isopoda) for Sequoia Wrens - linking head pattern to species (for all species, not just for the three listed)(https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/caecidotea-communis-vs-racovitzai-call-for-observations/24181 and https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/asellus-hilgendorfii-call-for-observations/24217) - iNat observations
• Insects
  • Phyllocnistis grape leafminer moths for Charley Eiseman - Specimens. Larvae or pupae dead or alive, or reared adults.
  • Undescribed Cornus-mining Nepticulid for Charley Eiseman - Larvae, dead or alive.
  • Ichneumonidae for no specific project - Specimens
  • Coniontini for @coniontises - Videos/gifs (or less preferably, audio recordings) of vibrating behaviour
  • Syrphidae (“hoverflies”) infected with Entomophthora for @herebespiders11, [1] - specimens. Contact for instructions
  • Cryptes baccatus ‘wattle tick scale’ on Acacia for @penelopeuq - Observations with information about the host plant
  • Eucera (Peponapis) pruinosa (“squash bees”) for Lopez-Uribe Lab at Penn State, https://lopezuribelab.com/squash-bee-nest-location/
  • Feral bees for Lopez-Uribe Lab at Penn State, https://lopezuribelab.com/tracking-feral-bee-health/
  • Pictures of Spotted Lanternfly egg masses, https://ansp.org/get-involved/science-at-the-academy/spotted-lanternfly/
  • Caddisflies for The Caddisfly Collective at the University of Toronto, see website for instructions https://caddisflycollective.com/ - specimens
  • Ants, beetles, and mosquitoes for the DNA Barcoding Network https://dnalc.cshl.edu/programs/citizen.html, [1] - specimens, contact for instructions
  • Hemiptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, others for Smokies All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory https://dlia.org/priority-taxa/ (updated list of needs), also help IDing species in this project [1]
  • Kissing bugs for Texas A&M - https://kissingbug.tamu.edu/found-a-bug/

Other invertebrates

• Hydras for @chyland, contact for instructions - specimens

No specific taxon

• For the Vietnam government(?) - Identifications in this project.
• For the Smokies All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory - https://dlia.org/priority-taxa/ (updated list of needs), also help IDing species in this project [1]

---

Still not finding something that interests you?

• citizenscience.gov
• scistarter.org

So, you want to add something to the list?

You’re going to leave a comment about that, maybe? Try scrolling back up to the top of the post again, first…

[mws]

And thanks to @bouteloua for loaning me the formatting from the CV clean-up wiki

[fffffffff]

I won’t add it as I have no idea about what researches from there need, but definitely some help of iNatters could be used there: https://samplecrossing.ru/

[mws]

Hmm, yeah, maybe best to keep this wiki to researchers that speak english. Don’t really know what to do with a russian research group

[fffffffff]

Well, who said they can’t speak English? Plus they need material not only from Russia, pages can be auto translated.

[fffffffff]

You should add @mali4622 to Field Penny-Cress seeds part and @tzuest about Erysimum cheiranthoides seeds, they asked me, but I fail to find any that’re good for collection.

[mws]

You can edit the wiki yourself! Perhaps add their profiles as links [1] and [2], if they’ve got helpful information for collecting the seeds?

[fffffffff]

I just think as I’m not the researcher I shouldn’t add them, like, what if they wouldn’t want that, etc.

[mws]

You can send them a message on iNat and ask them if they want to be added to this wiki. I just did that with @dr_firefly, to ask him if he wanted to add his own project to here, or have me do it

[mws]

@mws

• All branches of life
  • We run a general biodiversity conservation project in NE Vietnam and the species lists for our area are woefully incomplete. We are trying to generate a more complete biodiversity profile of the archipelago for use by our own conservation NGO as well as the local National Park, the local Forest Protection Department, and the national level Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
  • The list for arthropods is especially incomplete, and plants have been particularly difficult to identify to species.
• The project is Cat Ba Island and Surrounding Area. All assistance is greatly appreciated.

This project was just added to the list by @earthknight. I was wondering what everyone else thought of this addition? It doesn’t really fit into what my vision was for this wiki, because it’s location-specific. The large majority of iNatters can’t go to Vietnam to make observations in one specific location, so if they come to this thread looking for ways to help, they won’t be able to help with that one. However, if other people interested in this wiki think that this project does fit in, then we can leave it there. Thoughts?

[bouteloua]

yeah that’s the hard part about formatting it in a place like this, whereas sites like SciStarter have ways to sort by topic or location. most efforts are location-based anyways since most taxa don’t occur everywhere

[fffffffff]

There’s no Acer rubrum everywhere, no Cryptes baccatus either. How is Vietnam location is worse than bugs that only occur in Australia? Large majority of iNatters can’t go there either.

[earthknight]

No-one needs to come to an area to assist in any project.

Identifications are often far more useful than additional observations.

This is where the lack generally is and where where the community as a whole can be extremely helpful.

[bclaridge]

Glad to see you included added my suggestion about collecting ichs. I just wanted to add one more thing about how helpful collections are.

In addition to traditionally taxonomic revisionary studies, newly collected ichneumonids are incredibly helpful for molecular genetic studies as well. For instance, the collection I work at mainly has specimens from the 1960’s to 1980’s. Luckily, we can still get enough DNA out of these specimens for phylogenomic studies, but fresh material yields much, much more useful data. If anyone is interested in learning to collect ichneumonids or other insects, feel free to contact me.

[mws]

Well, the other ones are all “find a thing”. Assuming you’re in the area, you can can help find the thing. The vietnam project is just… “use iNat as you typically would, but in this location instead”. You’re not really finding a specific thing, which all the other listed projects have us doing.

For now, I’ll at least re-format that entry in the list to fit the proper format, instead of being a full paragraph…

[fffffffff]

But the topic is called assisting researchers, if iNatting in that area is enough to help them it’s even better (easier). Assuming that people in that area could go iNatting more or someone travelling through the country would like to visit the area.

[jasonhernandez74]

@earthknight

Identifications are often far more useful than additional observations.

Not on the one I’m about to create.

[mws]

What do you mean?