Uploading hundreds of observations of the same species

General
1

A question:

A user has had a few ‘mothing sessions’ (where you attract moths using a lamp), apparently photographed every single individual during these sessions and uploaded every single photo as a new observation. This has resulted in over 2000 new observations of only a few dozen species, with dozens to hundreds of observations of a single species (not individual).

For example: 100 individuals of species X were attracted to the lamp during one specific night at one specific place. User photographed every single individual and created 100 new observations to record them all. 60 individuals of species Z were attracted, and user created another 60 observations to record them all. Etc.

Usually, people will just photograph one or a few individuals and create a single observation, mentioning for example that they counted 100 individuals. This way, the observations pages remain simple, clear and organized. Now, I have to plough through 20 pages of the same handful of moths over and over again. Plus I’m wondering, does this really have any added value?

Is this OK, since they’re all different individuals, or are there any guidelines to regulate this? I know I could just mute or block the user, but I don’t want to do that, because there are some really interesting observations that I don’t want to miss.

2

This doesn’t violate any site guidelines. If you don’t want to mute or block the user (or exclude them from your Identify/Explore searches), you could consider reaching out and explaining your concerns, perhaps emphasizing that you like their observations but are getting overwhelmed by them.

3

I’d say the main value is that if species get split, having records of all the individuals makes it more likely that you’ve picked up the “other species”. I can’t say how many times I’ve gotten back from a moth trip only to find that something I passed off as a “common species” was actually a complex of a bunch of similar species with subtle differences I wasn’t noticing at the time. I don’t have any problem with someone uploading a bunch of what they believe to be the same species. In fact, I’d rather that than have them say “there were 100 of these” and having to take their word that they correctly identified those other 99 individuals as belonging to the same species.

^This is the tagline for my autobiography.

4

When it comes to the title of this thread — Uploading hundreds of observations of the same species — here’s an example of what Paul is talking about. I’m always inspired by this clip of @gcwarbler:

5

I’m an observer who does exactly what you’re talking about. Usually, I’m photographing every single individual moth because I either want to give an idea of how many individuals I saw of a certain species, or I don’t always know what species a moth is and I don’t want to miss an uncommon species just because it looks a lot like a common species. But I can completely understand how that might be annoying to an identifier! So, I’ll apologize - but please feel free to ignore my moths (or bryophytes or vascular plants or whatever).

6

If they are good observations/photographs, now you have a dataset that is arguably 60-100+ times more valuable than it was when it was just one individual. One individual doesn’t show you what the variation is in the one species at that place and time. If you have 60-100, you now have a great sample size to answer some questions like how variable they are at that place and time, and if there is perhaps multiple taxa hidden within those observations. Of course, it is only valuable if the observations are good and someone decides to use them. Observations of taxa that are much more variable may be more valuable than those that aren’t, but how do you know they aren’t variable if you don’t document that?

7

Seconding this, I often in the moment have a really hard time remembering species or what things look like and so it very often isn’t until I’m uploading after I get home that I’ll realize that a bunch of different individuals that showed up were all the same species. As well as I really don’t trust myself to know if two moths are the same species or totally different species that just look similar and I’d rather I get photos and upload the same species multiple times then miss something because I thought they were the same thing. I also personally think there is something to say for the number of observations helping give kind of an idea of what is commonly showing up vs what is a lot more uncommon

8

If I go on my moth walk I take a photo of every single individual I see. But for uploading, when it is a common species I really know, I put all photos of that one species together under one observation and then write " I saw x on my walk" with x usually being less than 10.

9

Another observer who does the same, my philosophy around observing duplicates is that there’s a strong chance it’s going to be the last time I ever see that species. Even common species are geographically restricted, as a homeless man I never know if I’m going to have to move cities or provinces entirely into a completely new biome.

When I take photos of something and upload it even though I have done so hundreds of times before, it’s because I’m assuming it’s the last time I will ever be able to. I could have to move, common species can easily dip under the radar entirely and into extinction/extirpation (Xerces blue being the famous example), or it could be the last time anyone in that location ever uploads one because of their commonality (I have over 300 taxa firsts for the city I’m currently staying in, including multiple entire orders, despite most of them being extremely common in the area)

10

I agree with OP. Uploading a 100 photos of what appear to be the same species observed at the same time and place is highly likely to have significant value, and any possible benefit is outweighed by the burden it places on iNat users. (This is to be distinguished from uploading many photos of the same species from different times or places, or a few photos of the same species at one time and place to show variation.) I’m thankful few people have time to do this; otherwise iNat data would be very difficult to sort through, and more and more identifiers would find other things to do. (I also wonder if some people do it just because they want to increase their observation count?)

I’m not aware of anything in the guidelines against it, but I’d be in favor of adding a guideline discouraging it.

11

Posting as separate observations many individuals of one species at one time in one place is certainly allowed. As an identifier, I’d prefer that they were different photos in a single observation (which is actually against the rules). However, if the observer wants to post them all, the observer can. These observations do provide information about variation with in the population and make a stab at assessing abundance. A few years ago I did something similar to document heat damage to Douglas Fir. Whether this posting of so many individuals is worthwhile is a valid question. That we identifiers have the right to skip over them is unquestionable. So . . . my opinion about this varies depending on whether I’m an observer or identifier. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

12

iNaturalist’s mission is to connect people to nature and advance biodiversity science and conservation.

That’s iNat’s mission statement. I would argue that trying to actively discourage the type of observer behavior being described here is in direct conflict with that mission.

13

This does not violate any guidelines for iNaturalist. I understand it may be frustrating but we have the option to speak with someone if we have concerns regarding their actions. As long as they are different individuals of the presumed ‘same’ species, I can’t see why this is an issue.

I often record multiple specimens of the same species to document subtle morphological differences. You never know if your photos and information can be used to found a new study. Data can be interpreted differently depending on what the study is aiming to prove. I think it is up to researchers to decide what is or isn’t useful.

14

It’s also worth mentioning that in the case of natural history collections, preserving specimens of a whole bunch of individuals from one place and time is considered very valuable. It’s usually called collecting a “series” of the organism in question. Having a series from a single place and time is desirable when doing research, as it provides a glimpse into what one single population can look like in terms of variation. Plus if multiple species turn out to be involved, it can provide evidence of which combinations can occur sympatrically. Two distinct genetic groupings in a single population is a different sort of evidence for speciation than a similar level of genetic variation spread across a large geographic area, for example. I’m sometimes taken aback when someone unfamiliar with taxonomic research asks “why are you preserving another one of those; I thought you already had one”, as if natural history collections are like collections of stamps or Pokémon cards, where the point is to “catch em all” and check them off your list. Anyone who works in natural history collections will attest to the value of having large series to compare, and I see photo series on inat like this as being similarly valuable. As for whether or not to go through and ID them, that’s a personal preference. I probably wouldn’t ask someone to change what they’re observing because I don’t like IDing what they post though.

15

For folks who do this kind of thing habitually, I filter out their observations (they effectively cease to exist for me). I already spend too much time in front of the computer, I don’t need to waste time on this kind of thing. If somebody else wants to do it, that’s their call. For folks who occasionally post short series, I identify the first individual of a series and skip the rest. That’s trickier to do however.

16

When particular species is gone, this historic information all of a sudden becomes a lot more interesting. Right now I am seeing White Ash, Eastern Hemlock, Eastern White Pine, and American Beech all die off at once. Mosquitoes, too. I can’t believe that I can go out in the forested wetlands where live on June 2nd, and not even get buzzed by a single mosquito. There used to be clouds of mosquitoes this time of year. Recording everything can be interesting to people in the future. Knowing that a certain moth is prevalent now makes it more obvious when it’s gone.

17

One thing I’m curious about: On a busy moth sheet, for species which are numerous to common on a given night, it would be virtually impossible to avoid duplicate images of the same moth. I have to wonder if the user is sorting through all the photos to ensure that there were no duplicate individuals, e.g. Were there really 100 individuals of species X? or were there 90, ten of which got duplicate images and uploads, or perhaps only 50, some of which were photographed multiple times in the effort to be thorough? Parsing out individual moths from a large set of photos is a very tedious task, I’m not going to try it.

18

Thank you all for your replies and views on this subject. I don’t feel the need to personally reach out to users who do this and ask them to change anything. If this is an allowed, or even encouraged way of documenting organisms on iNat, then I have no reason at all to complain. And I can just skip through the many dozens of repeating photos for once.

I didn’t mean that recording the number of individuals isn’t important. On the contrary - I grew up recording the (estimated) numbers of all organisms I saw, and I was actually quite shocked when I first discovered iNat and found no standard way to record the number of individuals seen in each observation. Every observation here represents just one individual, even when you add the number in the notes.

I also record multiple specimens to document morphological differences, and I think that’s really useful. I’ve seen several species like this in the described situation and I don’t mind going through those. However, I’m really talking about the species that are like daisies and blackbirds - every individual is virtually identical to the second. Even if a taxonomic split were to happen, it would be impossible to distinguish between these individuals with photos alone, without taking the moths apart and studying their genetic or genital material.

I think this is such a broad statement that it could be used to discourage any form of regulating observations. For example, iNat has a rule to upload photos of the same organism in one single observation, but occasionally (new) users don’t know this and create several observations for the same individual. I think no one will argue that pointing that out to said users would be in direct conflict with iNat’s mission, even though said users may feel discouraged to continue posting.

If every user would record every single individual of a single location and single time, like I described, IDing would become virtually impossible. Just imagine this scenario: if a user one certain afternoon decided to take 2000 pictures of 2000 daisies in a city park and upload every single flower as a new observation, would identifiers really be happy about that? Or every single sandpiper in a group of 4000? Not to mention, if every user would do that, the huge amounts of data would rapidly become too much of a burden for the servers to support.

That’s true, and I have indeed seen the same individuals in different observations. Although they would be in a slightly different position (like, on the ground instead of the sheet), damaged individuals can be easily recognized.

Although not the main point, that inadvertently is a result of this practice. With three days of doing this, a user can become the number 1 observer of an entire country, with only a few dozen species.

19

Would be nice if iNat had some method whereby you could enter the number of a species you observed. As far as I can tell it basically allows one observation per entry so there’s no way this user could enter in a systematic data-based way the fact that they saw 100 of something. They could type it in as free text of course but that’s not particularly well structured data.

20

When this has come up on the forum before, using an observation field was the preferred solution. As you say though, iNat will never produce an “official” annotation for this, as “observation” means “one person interacts with one organism”, so a “number of organisms” annotation should technically always have a value of 1 for every observation. But there are plenty of user-made observation fields for “number of X observed”.