Sure but they have to be coming from a sustained population right? A naturally dispersing escapee from a caged colony of parrots in Tijuana would not be countable in San Diego.
well, for what it’s worth, i agree that they should be able to get ‘research grade’ or equivalent, but should only be sent to data partners that want them and either be excluded from range maps or else included with different map symbol. I think that’s broadly what I am seeing as the semi-consensus from the forum, so at this point it just comes down to whether the people running iNat want to and are able to do that or not…
I’m sorry i’m being too redundant, I realize that i am doing that, but multiple people have made the same claim that marking things as cultivated is some sort of ‘garbage bin’ even all using that same wording. So i replied with the same response because the chance of them seeing my other post(s) buried somewhere was minimal. But maybe that’s not the best way to use this forum, I’m still trying to figure that out.
1 Like
It is usually done on a case by case basis depending on the ability of a species to get an established population up, running and maintained. For example multiple parrots are now countable and considered established by the ABA in Florida and California. Muscovy Duck and Egyptian Goose as well.
1 Like
I’m not really disagreeing. You make a number of good points, Charlie!
Thanks for the moderation of the forum!
4 Likes
Thanks! The repetition thing is something i was talking about elsewhere recently too… so i know i am doing it anyhow :)
2 Likes
I understand. Thanks for the clarification. I wasn’t saying natural vagrants are not countable. I was just trying to point out that birders consider establishment or naturalization of introduced species to require a self sustaining population. In this discussion about plants we’ve been applying a looser standard: we have a lot of agreement it seems that individual plants count so long as they were not planted by hand. They don’t need to be part of a naturalized population as birders require for “countable” populations of species like Muscovy Duck and Egyptian Goose.
2 Likes
Thanks @stephen_thorpe. Just got the record, GBIF has always been happy to include data on any freely occurring organisms or any that play a major role in the environment (crops, plantations, naturalised, weedy plants, those that have jumped the fence from cultivation, etc.). There is much less value in getting point-based data for plants in private gardens or homes where it is often likely they are unable to reproduce or spread. Such data can easily confuse models of they are not clearly tagged for what they are. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe any restrictions on research grade for cultivated plants come from GBIF (or myself …).
3 Likes
Thanks for the clarification @dhobern
I agree that certain or very likely cultivated only plants should be clearly tagged as such (hence my continued suggestion about using different coloured pegs on range maps for cultivated plant records), but I would question your quoted sentence (above). Cultivated plants in gardens are often host plants for wild insects or pathogens, and often also sources for new weeds escaping from cultivation. Therefore such data has much value from a biosecurity perspective. If a new pathogen arrives (e.g. myrtle rust), it would be useful to know where the potential host plants are, so that we can efficiently monitor the spread of the pathogen and what effects it is having.
2 Likes
Andy,
Well, I think we can never draw an absolute non-arbitrary line because the circumstances are just too variable. Some botanists I know won’t count “escaped” plants if they are still in the same site as the original plant. For instance, a rhizome/stolon/bulb that grew “on its own” adjacent to the parent should still be marked captive. But if that showed up across the street, or down the creek, that would be justifiable. Sometimes plants are transported in soil from captive circumstances, and then grow elsewhere as independent plants when the soil is moved.
I think the approach of counting plants (even weeds) in garden or arboretum environments is fairly new. In San Diego, the botanists there only record plants in wild areas (lawn weeds not even included).
In many cases it is probably best to be on the safe side…but what is the safe side?? The best answer is probably just to use common sense. If it is a species or in a circumstance that is probably planted, start with that approach first before deciding it counts as “wild”. Some species are more weedy than others, some are sterile and will never spread on their own, and so on.
2 Likes
When a species is reintroduced to an area from which it was extirpated, is that species now cultivated? A tree in a nursery, a pot, or a plantation is cultivated, but should it still be so when planted in its final location? Has it not been released into the wild? Is the notion of an “urban forest” just ecological bs? Someone hatches turtle eggs and releases them into a wetland. Someone else comes along later and observes those turtles. Are they wild or cultivated? If you say wild, why? And how is that turtle different from a street tree? Because the street tree isn’t mobile and the turtle is? If I bury an acorn, it should arguably be classed as cultivated, but what if a squirrel buries that acorn? Again, how is that really different? I get that the cultivated/captive tag is meant to separate out stuff like lunch food, pets, zoo animals, gardens, and crops. I also get that iNaturalist strives to increase our understanding of the distribution and abundance of flora and fauna. But … accidental and intentional introductions of species are rampant. Then there’s climate change and its attendant changes to habitats, not least in terms of temperatures and moisture. Who’s to say what constitutes a “natural range” nowadays when even those are changing without our direct and active involvement?
To my mind, here’s what this all boils down to: its a delightfully philosophical subject that questions the role of humans in the environment. Are we a part of nature, or apart from nature? Human impacts and influence are everywhere, both direct and indirect. Is our habitat and everything we do unnatural or are we just another species doing its thing? Where do we draw the line and should there even be a line?
4 Likes
only if the individual plant is planted (and yeah sometimes you can’t tell, just do the best you can)
Yes. (this is according to the protocol not just my ‘opinions’…). If someone planted it.
I don’t think it necessarily is but it’s often misused. A bunch of planted trees don’t function the same as a forest. This is even true for plantations and ‘replanted’ forests and in some ways restoration sites.
In theory, cultivated, but you aren’t going to know, so it’s not worth worrying too much about.
Because squirrels follow different ‘rules’ than humans. Also because human behavior just isn’t something iNat covers as its main focus. Where people of varying groups and cultures choose to plant acorns IS interesting, but tracking that isn’t really what iNat is set up for, or in the least, they should be tagged for differentiation.
Climate has changed since the beginning of time. This is NOT meant to say that humans don’t affect the climate. We do, and it matters. But ecosystems are trying or failing to adjust and will continue to do so and it’s really important to be able to tell what is happening in the ecosystem on its own without human involvement…
The point of captive/cultivated isn’t to parse out some magical, impossible ‘natural’ from the human altered. That concept has a lot of issues associated with it anyway, some of which you bring up here. The point is only to divide out that which humans put somewhere, from that which got there by some other means. I can go into detail but it’s better just reading the older posts above because i have been told (accurately so) that i get redundant and even this post probably is getting towards that.
This is a really important topic. But it just isn’t what the captive/cultivated field is about. The captive/cultivated field makes it easier not harder to look at how humans alter the landscape. There are some concerns that cultivated observations are minimized oniNat, but those are covered in another thread
4 Likes
I understand that it isn’t, but I am suggesting it factors into why people might find this field “problematic”.
1 Like
I agree! And there are ways the language could be clarified.
1 Like
We seem to be conflating two different issues so I think it’s time for a
RECAP:
Wild vs Cultivated — Refers to an individual
Wild: The individual was wherever it was observed on its own, not planted or kept there by a human. The seed or spore naturally fell there, or it reproduced vegetatively on its own, or it is a wild animal that arrived on its own power.
Cultivated: A person planted the individual where it was observed, or it is a domestic animal held captive, or a captive wild animal (home, farm, ranch, zoo).
Native vs Exotic/Naturalised — Refers to a taxon
Native: The animal or plant species already occurred in this area at the time first records were taken. This concept varies between regions and the timing also (1492 for the Americas, 1788 for Australia).
Exotic/Naturalised: The species is not known to be native to the area, and arrived through human intervention, such as in pasture seed, as a garden plant, domestic animal, stowaway or through an acclimatisation society (popular in the 1800s).
There are plenty of grey areas, but the basic concepts are used quite frequently. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that the iNaturalist ‘Wild’ vs ‘Not Wild’ category refers to the individual and has nothing to do with the native or naturalised status of the species in the area where it was observed.
10 Likes
I mean, it’s an interesting subject to ponder, obviously- but there is no need to get into the philosophical weeds for this simple DQA assessment because in this case we are looking for a functional distinction oriented towards a particular use-case, not an essential distinction (along those lines of philosophical inquiry, I would support the idea that no such essential distinction can be made).
3 Likes
The problem is there are so many potential use-cases for the iNaturalist data and many potential users. From my experience, I’m not sure the “cultivated/captive” distinction as defined for plants is really all that helpful. As has been pointed out, the cultivated/captive tag lumps a house plant (indoors, watered weekly, fertilized) with a native tree planted in reforestation project decades ago that may survive completely un-assisted by humans for centuries.
A researcher using iNaturalist data is ultimately responsible for checking that the data being used is appropriate to the research question. There is not going to be one filter or tag that will cover most or even a plurality of research uses. For instance, say I’m studying how precipitation influences the range of a weedy annual plant that occurs in cities and in natural areas. I’m pretty sure reviewers are going to object if I treat individuals observed as weeds in irrigated landscapes the same as individuals occurring in non-irrigated environments. Yet neither is considered “cultivated”. iNaturalist doesn’t have an “irrigated” tag so ultimately I as a researcher I am going to need to come up with my own way to differentiate these observations.
So why are we discussing this? iNaturalist has a definition as understood by experienced users, it is excellently summarized by @silversea_starsong, @mftasp and @charlie above, so let’s just stick with it, why bring up all these special cases? That point of view is fine as far as it goes, but I think it would be a mistake to assume that iNaturalist’s current system for data curation is perfect and won’t change in the future. Definitions can be improved and refined over time. And I would think that discussions like this are what the forum is for.
3 Likes
I think the original intention of the cultivated flag was to just sort of weed out the house plant type observations. But, when many of the plant experts on the site also reference your second example… that’s where the confusion comes in for us non-expert users. Especially when the recommendation is to just use your “best judgment” on a case by case basis. Problem is that we don’t know how much we really don’t know…if that makes any sense! You can have 100 people submit an observation of the same tree in a forest preserve. One person knows the location well and that it was farmland 50 years ago and all planted recently. The other 99 people think it must be wild because it looks wild and natural.
1 Like
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that it’s a perfect system or filter, and I’ve been among those previously bringing up some of the same problem scenarios in the discussion above that you are now and suggesting possibilities for more granular DQA.
What I am suggesting is that spinning off into questions like “what is natural?” isn’t likely to get us anywhere in improving the issue of captive/cultivated tags. There are functional reasons why it’s useful (moreso for some than for others) to have observations pre-sorted by that filter, and there are certainly ways for that functionality to be improved.
2 Likes
We are discussing this, as iNaturalist is structurally discriminating against so called “casual” observations. E.g. by not giving them “needs ID” status, filtering them out of standard searches and by not showing them in the “compare” feature. The consequences of this discrimination are different for different taxa.
For birds for example, it makes perfect sense to filter out the occasional escaped cage bird - most bird observations in urban landscapes will still be easy to ID with the iNaturalist compare feature.
This is very different for plants. Most plants in urban landscapes are planted, and the most abundant taxa will therefore not be displayed in standard searches and will be filtered out in the compare feature. The discrimination of casual observations is therefore detrimental to plant identification in urban landscapes. Especially beginners, but also experienced botanists on a visit to another continent, will find that this filter as a major obstacle when trying to ID plants.
It also seems that some of the experienced users you mentioned, did not realize until now, that we are in the middle of an extinction crisis. And they seem to lack the foresight that data on planted and cultivated taxa is urgently needed, e.g. to locate the last survivors of species that are extinct in the wild.
I would think that the structural discrimination within iNaturalist against “casual” observations, especially in the case of cultivated plants, is a not very thought through feature.
hope that helps
4 Likes
Hey @mreith, I think you are having a separate argument than what the original poster asked. He wanted to know where to draw the line between a wild and not wild plant.
The discussion has been hijacked into a separate one on the validity or not of iNat’s policy on how it deals with casual observations. IMO we should have this discussion in a separate thread.
5 Likes