What is the species record for a backyard project?

[AdamWargon]

Thanks, @thomaseverest! I read the thread that you linked to, by Matt @muir.

Matt @muir also shared this list of backyard projects:

@muir

If you’re comfortable sharing what you see around where you live, you should! And if and when you do, you should consider adding your project to this umbrella grouping of people doing the same at their homes and properties: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/home-projects-umbrella

If you sort that list by number of species, and you take out the top one (because it is a farm, rather than a house and yard), it looks like the species record is around 2,000 species, which was hit (or nearly hit) by multiple people.

But they’re not sequencing DNA, and they’re not looking inside water or soil.

@rqy-yong

@carnifex

They apparently did not bother to check for plant pathogens - they should’ve found dozens of (true and false) mildew and rust fungus species on both wild and ornamental plants. Plus all the other microfungi growing on living plant matter

It’s not that we didn’t “bother”, it’s that we largely couldn’t. ID-ing of any of those things with any degree of certainty would’ve required, at the bare minimum, a compound scope with 100x magnification, assorted stains and slide preps, and ideally ability to make cultures and sequence DNA. As a researching taxonomist I theoretically had access to all those things, but 1) we were directed to evacuate work and lock down at home with very little notice; 2) there were misgivings about starting up a whole lab at home, not to mention OHS restrictions; and 3) we actually didn’t think to undertake this project until after lockdown had commenced (on day 1, after we were already stuck at home). It’s also worth noting that stuff like that blows out very easily. Microbiomes are incredibly complex, with lots of species/taxon complexes, strains and symbioses.

@matthewholden1

Our rules were that each species had to be identifiable as an organism with the naked eye

Cryptic species are not identifiable with the naked eye. What if you have 10 nematodes in a spoonful of soil, that all look identical, but are revealed (through DNA barcoding) to be 10 different species?

If you’re willing to send DNA for sequencing, use a microscope, etc., then you should be able to double this 2,000 species number, at least?

Here’s more helpful stuff from @muir, in case you’re inspired to tackle this:

@muir

here’s a tutorial for how to make a project for a specific place https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-make-a-project-for-a-specific-place/41066

…and after you’ve done that, then the second step is

@muir

add a comment under this project journal post… https://www.inaturalist.org/posts/33048-welcome-to-the-project-for-biodiversity-around-homes

…to request adding your home project to the umbrella project.

And this comment from Brenda Black (@spiphany) . . .

@spiphany

I suspect that for most projects like this, the species count is not so much a reflection of the relative biodiversity of a space as much as it is a reflection of the energy that the observer put into documenting it.