it’s not that i don’t understand why some folks might want to see observations in context. i just don’t believe that a large portion of the iNat community will benefit from having ecoregions specifically built into the system, especially considering the cost to implement.
you have to have at least the standard map with political boundaries, streets, water bodies, etc. as part of a system that uses location at its core. the topo lines and the alternate aerial view are useful, too, to help place an observation accurately, especially when there are no streets, water, etc. nearby.
but ecoregions are just a nice-to-have.
also consider that the ecoregions that you might find useful aren’t necessarily the ones i might want to use. maybe i’m in the US, and i want to use the level IV EPA ecoregions. or maybe i want to look at things at a higher level II. or maybe i’m working worldwide, and so i default to the level III-equivalent WWF ecoregions… or should i use Nature Conservancy’s adjusted ecoregions (which claim to fix a few problems with the WWF set)?
maybe i’m a botanist in California, and i don’t care about EPA ecoregions and instead want Jepson’s bioregions so that i can align with their keys, etc.
or maybe i think that ecoregions are outdated now that USGS’s Ecological Land Units exist. (personally, i like the ELUs, since they show where urban land cover is.)
which region set(s) do you add to iNat?
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just for fun, i added a new “ecolandunit” view to my web map with a USGS ELU overlay and a pop-up that will return the USGS ELU details when you click on an observation, as shown below, based on https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_map.html?view=ecolandunit&taxon_id=47727&defaultzoom=2 :
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the tutorial shows how to do things in multiple tools, including ArcGIS Online, which is cloud-based. so you can set something up on your computer and view it later from another computer or mobile device, as long as it has an internet connection.
or you can use my web map (or your own adaptation of it), and that’s also available on whatever device you want to use, as long as it has a web browser.