There have been some questions about including associations with observations, but I couldn’t see one that quite matched what I am about to suggest. If I did miss a similar forum question, I apologise in advance.
At present, there is no standard input box that asks for plant associations when recording an insect. I was recently looking at some butterfly observations and the range of flora that it was photographed with was substantial. Association information is invaluable when understanding insects and providing information on diet and potential plant hosts.
It would be good if an association input box was included so that this information could be added when uploading an identification. This info could then be added to the main database and made available when undertaking a search.
Observation fields are bested suited for this kind of data. There are quite a few existing fields for this kind of thing, so worth searching for one that suits your use case
I really like the South African solution to this. It’s elegant and I should use it more often myself.
I still use the assorted “interaction->” observation fields, since with those I can add the interacting taxon names before I bulk upload the photos to iNat (rather than have to wait until after the upload and get each the observations’s web address and copy it across to the associated observations).
