Of course we’re talking about population-wide trends here, but in the case of ME, you nailed it.
I love nature, and I grew up:
So you have accurately predicted my participation in iNaturalist.
My impression of birders and naturalists generally is that they tend to be from the suburban middle-class sort of demographic. People who have the spare time and income to dedicate to weird hobbies (including spending a lot of time on the internet), combined with relatively easy access to natural areas.
Participation might be low in Vermont because in Canada and the northern states most plants and wildlife aren’t really active yet in late April.
i think if you frame this as “participation”, you missing some of the story if you don’t look at observations vs observers. when you break things down this way, i think you can see the Vermont situation is related to a ton of observers (Wyoming, too, although I would guess it’s more tourism-related here), while California, Texas, DC, etc. have a lot of observations per observer.
| State | Observations | Observers | Population | Area (sq km) | Observations per Observer | Diff vs Avg 50 States + DC | Obervations per 10000 Pop | Diff vs Avg 50 States + DC | Observers per 10000 Pop | Diff vs Avg 50 States + DC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 284,670 | 9,504 | 5,157,699 | 135,927.46 | 29.95 | 2.6 | 551.9 | (37.9) | 18.4 | (3.1) |
| Alaska | 100,452 | 4,177 | 740,133 | 1,704,340.35 | 24.05 | (3.3) | 1,357.2 | 767.4 | 56.4 | 34.9 |
| Arizona | 449,906 | 16,059 | 7,582,384 | 296,192.06 | 28.02 | 0.7 | 593.4 | 3.5 | 21.2 | (0.4) |
| Arkansas | 170,123 | 6,518 | 3,088,354 | 138,040.34 | 26.10 | (1.3) | 550.9 | (39.0) | 21.1 | (0.5) |
| California | 3,216,327 | 89,101 | 39,431,263 | 423,781.19 | 36.10 | 8.7 | 815.7 | 225.9 | 22.6 | 1.0 |
| Colorado | 392,715 | 18,115 | 5,957,493 | 270,036.30 | 21.68 | (5.7) | 659.2 | 69.4 | 30.4 | 8.8 |
| Connecticut | 172,634 | 8,128 | 3,675,069 | 14,354.23 | 21.24 | (6.1) | 469.7 | (120.1) | 22.1 | 0.6 |
| Delaware | 78,446 | 3,511 | 1,051,917 | 6,407.43 | 22.34 | (5.0) | 745.7 | 155.9 | 33.4 | 11.8 |
| District of Columbia | 78,085 | 4,602 | 702,250 | 177.25 | 16.97 | (10.4) | 1,111.9 | 522.1 | 65.5 | 44.0 |
| Florida | 1,048,846 | 41,532 | 23,372,215 | 170,497.52 | 25.25 | (2.1) | 448.8 | (141.1) | 17.8 | (3.8) |
| Georgia | 357,761 | 16,678 | 11,180,878 | 154,516.78 | 21.45 | (5.9) | 320.0 | (269.8) | 14.9 | (6.6) |
| Hawaii | 155,026 | 6,738 | 1,446,146 | 26,951.13 | 23.01 | (4.3) | 1,072.0 | 482.2 | 46.6 | 25.0 |
| Idaho | 116,439 | 5,365 | 2,001,619 | 216,187.34 | 21.70 | (5.7) | 581.7 | (8.1) | 26.8 | 5.2 |
| Illinois | 467,960 | 17,690 | 12,710,158 | 150,228.81 | 26.45 | (0.9) | 368.2 | (221.6) | 13.9 | (7.6) |
| Indiana | 231,645 | 10,034 | 6,924,275 | 94,261.72 | 23.09 | (4.3) | 334.5 | (255.3) | 14.5 | (7.1) |
| Iowa | 94,508 | 4,886 | 3,241,488 | 145,713.81 | 19.34 | (8.0) | 291.6 | (298.3) | 15.1 | (6.5) |
| Kansas | 99,190 | 4,513 | 2,970,606 | 213,658.58 | 21.98 | (5.4) | 333.9 | (255.9) | 15.2 | (6.4) |
| Kentucky | 163,162 | 7,551 | 4,588,372 | 104,853.22 | 21.61 | (5.7) | 355.6 | (234.2) | 16.5 | (5.1) |
| Louisiana | 185,294 | 6,989 | 4,597,740 | 136,012.22 | 26.51 | (0.8) | 403.0 | (186.8) | 15.2 | (6.4) |
| Maine | 212,436 | 9,951 | 1,405,012 | 91,575.13 | 21.35 | (6.0) | 1,512.0 | 922.2 | 70.8 | 49.3 |
| Maryland | 505,892 | 16,342 | 6,263,220 | 32,242.18 | 30.96 | 3.6 | 807.7 | 217.9 | 26.1 | 4.5 |
| Massachusetts | 601,460 | 22,485 | 7,136,171 | 27,287.26 | 26.75 | (0.6) | 842.8 | 253.0 | 31.5 | 9.9 |
| Michigan | 465,910 | 17,281 | 10,140,459 | 250,340.13 | 26.96 | (0.4) | 459.5 | (130.4) | 17.0 | (4.5) |
| Minnesota | 324,821 | 13,309 | 5,793,151 | 225,204.49 | 24.41 | (2.9) | 560.7 | (29.1) | 23.0 | 1.4 |
| Mississippi | 95,794 | 4,003 | 2,943,045 | 125,916.78 | 23.93 | (3.4) | 325.5 | (264.3) | 13.6 | (8.0) |
| Missouri | 244,877 | 10,368 | 6,245,466 | 180,898.11 | 23.62 | (3.7) | 392.1 | (197.7) | 16.6 | (5.0) |
| Montana | 90,478 | 4,730 | 1,137,233 | 380,774.01 | 19.13 | (8.2) | 795.6 | 205.8 | 41.6 | 20.0 |
| Nebraska | 61,101 | 3,125 | 2,005,465 | 200,521.70 | 19.55 | (7.8) | 304.7 | (285.1) | 15.6 | (6.0) |
| Nevada | 105,080 | 5,820 | 3,267,467 | 287,385.86 | 18.05 | (9.3) | 321.6 | (268.2) | 17.8 | (3.8) |
| New Hampshire | 185,375 | 7,613 | 1,409,032 | 24,213.98 | 24.35 | (3.0) | 1,315.6 | 725.8 | 54.0 | 32.5 |
| New Jersey | 337,135 | 13,737 | 9,500,851 | 22,617.31 | 24.54 | (2.8) | 354.8 | (235.0) | 14.5 | (7.1) |
| New Mexico | 214,553 | 8,007 | 2,130,256 | 315,620.57 | 26.80 | (0.6) | 1,007.2 | 417.4 | 37.6 | 16.0 |
| New York | 776,472 | 33,383 | 19,867,248 | 141,556.66 | 23.26 | (4.1) | 390.8 | (199.0) | 16.8 | (4.8) |
| North Carolina | 724,453 | 28,827 | 11,046,024 | 139,914.75 | 25.13 | (2.2) | 655.8 | 66.0 | 26.1 | 4.5 |
| North Dakota | 19,753 | 1,186 | 796,568 | 182,937.79 | 16.66 | (10.7) | 248.0 | (341.8) | 14.9 | (6.7) |
| Ohio | 627,136 | 21,354 | 11,883,304 | 116,260.31 | 29.37 | 2.0 | 527.7 | (62.1) | 18.0 | (3.6) |
| Oklahoma | 172,603 | 6,774 | 4,095,393 | 181,550.50 | 25.48 | (1.9) | 421.5 | (168.4) | 16.5 | (5.0) |
| Oregon | 531,826 | 19,189 | 4,272,371 | 254,577.90 | 27.72 | 0.4 | 1,244.8 | 655.0 | 44.9 | 23.4 |
| Pennsylvania | 650,366 | 26,732 | 13,078,751 | 119,388.34 | 24.33 | (3.0) | 497.3 | (92.5) | 20.4 | (1.1) |
| Rhode Island | 67,906 | 3,672 | 1,112,308 | 4,002.83 | 18.49 | (8.9) | 610.5 | 20.7 | 33.0 | 11.5 |
| South Carolina | 192,713 | 10,976 | 5,478,831 | 83,006.68 | 17.56 | (9.8) | 351.7 | (238.1) | 20.0 | (1.5) |
| South Dakota | 38,381 | 2,217 | 924,669 | 199,703.63 | 17.31 | (10.0) | 415.1 | (174.7) | 24.0 | 2.4 |
| Tennessee | 381,854 | 15,979 | 7,227,750 | 109,620.75 | 23.90 | (3.5) | 528.3 | (61.5) | 22.1 | 0.5 |
| Texas | 2,325,667 | 56,738 | 31,290,831 | 698,275.66 | 40.99 | 13.6 | 743.2 | 153.4 | 18.1 | (3.4) |
| Utah | 191,518 | 9,531 | 3,503,613 | 220,326.77 | 20.09 | (7.3) | 546.6 | (43.2) | 27.2 | 5.6 |
| Vermont | 206,912 | 7,908 | 648,493 | 24,927.65 | 26.16 | (1.2) | 3,190.7 | 2,600.8 | 121.9 | 100.4 |
| Virginia | 606,727 | 23,765 | 8,811,195 | 110,595.70 | 25.53 | (1.8) | 688.6 | 98.8 | 27.0 | 5.4 |
| Washington | 662,962 | 23,751 | 7,958,180 | 184,577.07 | 27.91 | 0.6 | 833.1 | 243.2 | 29.8 | 8.3 |
| West Virginia | 127,592 | 5,384 | 1,769,979 | 62,909.47 | 23.70 | (3.7) | 720.9 | 131.0 | 30.4 | 8.9 |
| Wisconsin | 378,283 | 13,311 | 5,960,975 | 169,549.04 | 28.42 | 1.1 | 634.6 | 44.8 | 22.3 | 0.8 |
| Wyoming | 69,125 | 4,214 | 587,618 | 253,391.55 | 16.40 | (11.0) | 1,176.4 | 586.5 | 71.7 | 50.2 |
| 20,060,350 | 733,353 | 340,110,988 | 9,823,808 | 27 | - | 589.8 | - | 21.6 | - |
…
because of the way folks learn about the platform through their networks, i don’t think the distribution you’re describing would be random.
i once posed a question about why Russia seems to have such a high level of research grade observations, and one of the responses i got makes that sort of point:
i think the above statement is supported by the numbers. although Russia does have fewer observations per capita than the US, the users it does have do make more observations per observer, and power users do seem to use the web rather than an app to make the bulk of their observations. so the typical Russian observer (based on how they use the platform) is very different from the typical US observer.
| Observations | % of All | Observers | % of All | Obs per Observer | population | Observations per 10000 Pop | Observers per 10000 Pop | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 20,059,814 | 100.0% | 523,082 | 100.0% | 38.35 | 340,110,988 | 589.8 | 15.4 |
| iOS | 9,272,209 | 46.2% | 358,924 | 68.6% | 25.83 | 272.6 | 10.6 | |
| Android | 4,445,684 | 22.2% | 116,333 | 22.2% | 38.22 | 130.7 | 3.4 | |
| Seek | 688,057 | 3.4% | 43,196 | 8.3% | 15.93 | 20.2 | 1.3 | |
| iOS + Android + Seek | 14,405,949 | 71.8% | 505,906 | 96.7% | 28.48 | 423.6 | 14.9 | |
| Next | 82,463 | 0.4% | 872 | 0.2% | 94.57 | 2.4 | 0.0 |
| Observations | % of All | Observers | % of All | Obs per Observer | population | Observations per 10000 Pop | Observers per 10000 Pop | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | 2,061,765 | 100.0% | 14,281 | 100.0% | 144.37 | 145,975,300 | 141.2 | 1.0 |
| iOS | 208,379 | 10.1% | 3,981 | 27.9% | 52.34 | 14.3 | 0.3 | |
| Android | 567,465 | 27.5% | 7,910 | 55.4% | 71.74 | 38.9 | 0.5 | |
| Seek | 12,621 | 0.6% | 804 | 5.6% | 15.70 | 0.9 | 0.1 | |
| iOS + Android + Seek | 788,464 | 38.2% | 12,435 | 87.1% | 63.41 | 54.0 | 0.9 |
For Russia, somewhere in the Forum is a comment - all university students have to do a biology course - and feeds into iNat obs.
PS it was a comment from fff but she is no longer active on the forum.
i don’t think that’s right. there are millions of university students in Russia, and even if only a fraction of them are taking a biology course at any given time, there’s simply not enough Russian observers in the data to support that. there is some discourse about how the Russian iNat community has grown here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/inaturalist-is-now-the-second-largest-contributor-of-gbif-mediated-data-for-russia/10039.
This is an interesting discussion. Although, remembering the North Carolina map, it doesn’t correlate perfectly. Here, for reference, is that map:
Now, the mountains along the western edge include Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, which are major ecotourism draws – the Smokies, especially, are promoted for their extreme tree diversity. So that may fit with the tourism factor being discussed. It is possible that the Outer Banks may experience this effect, too, although beach tourism is less tightly coupled to nature tourism (not all beachgoers are there to look at organisms).
Similarly, the inner coastal plain, although rural, has extensive agricultural areas such as cotton, corn, soybean, and tobacco, and not a lot of public land. This would explain its extensive belt of dark purple color on the map.
The part that needs some explanation is the “island” of green in the center. This is the “Triangle Area” – Raleigh - Durham - Chapel Hill and environs. It is a major urban center, which would suggest fewer opportunities to observe wild organisms; but conversely, it is also the most highly educated part of the state, as the “Research Triangle” attracts large numbers of people in STEM careers and is home to prestigious universities such as Duke. This suggests that it would be interesting to parse out the relative influence of each of Bradley’s factors, and the extent to which there are interaction effects.
I can confirm that the Minnesota Master Naturalist program often promotes iNaturalist and that volunteers can count identifying as volunteer time. I’ve actually never thought about if observations would count, but the requirements are fairly flexible (especially post-covid.)
I think the biodiversity and rate of endemism definitely has some influence on the statistics. I know that at least for myself, the more species in an area the more observations I will make. At least for me, my species repeat percentage remains relatively constant no matter where I observe, with a exponential curve for species in an area and number of species with 2 or more observations. But that is also just my style of using the platform.
Bonap is only for plants but these maps are very helpful in visualizing the potential influence, and could be an entire thread of it’s own
Density Gradient of Native Vascular Plant Species per 10,000 km²
The Wyoming effect shows up again here: US Counties (in blue) with extensive floristic surveys/inventories plus those that house significant plant collections (herbaria/museums)
Density Gradient of “Endemic” (Range Limited <50,000 km²) Plant Species per 10,000 km²
Have fun with the rest of the maps:
http://bonap.org/2015_SpecialtyMaps/Density%20Gradient%202015/Density%20Gradient%202015.html
http://bonap.org/2015_SpecialtyMaps/State%20Flora%20Similarity%202015/State%20Flora%20Similarity%202015%209-21-15.html
http://bonap.org/2015_SpecialtyMaps/
I make up 10% of the Iowa observations for 2024!
Hey, where’s DC? I’m not making another observation until we’re included—No iNaturalization without Representation!
Okay okay, I’m not making observations because it’s 15° F outside right now, haha. Great post!
(Though maybe DC would be an interesting data point: highly urban/liberal, younger than average, racially/ethnically diverse, etc.)
That is not correct. Only Natural Sciences students study biology in universities and even they mostly use iNat to outsource their task of plant IDing. Like there’s time of the year when my feed is literally flooded with hasty photos of plants and herbariums from under the desk.
I’d be down with participating, assuming that the fields in question have local ownership. The bigger problem might be in recruiting landownwers and gaining permission, but I’ve spent a lot of time fantasizing about driving down farm roads to the house or barn, introducing myself, and asking about the possibility of photographing odes around the irrigation ditches and stock ponds.
I wonder what sort of correlation there is between biodiverstity, iNat observations and agricultural land use. I might hypothesize that broad-acre cropping has poor biodiversity, open range ranching is better and mixed agriculture is the best.
From my experience living in a farming area there’s been falling biodiversity in broad acre farming due to the vast amounts of chemical use, as well as lack of permission to walk the acres looking for observations.
Here is another interesting statistic from Australia. The two states (NSW and WA) with the highest wheat production also have the lowest observations per capita and the two states (NT and TAS) with no wheat production have the highest observations per capita.
I am a casual observer living in a rural small town (pop approx. 1,500. 25 min. from closest city). I grew up in southern MN near the twin cities until high school. There was a significant interest in many students to attend school with a focus in environmental majors. There were many parks, as well as nature trail/hiking locations. Sidewalks were common and wooded areas, lakes, ponds, rivers were all easily accessible. I moved to and now reside in Alabama.
Sidewalks outside of major cities are rare. Getting to rural or untouched wooded areas can be difficult or dangerous to reach. Large acreage is more often protected with fencing or off limits to the public.
Our local major city is just now investing in large parks for the public as well as trails.
It is easier for me to go out of my way on a dirt road to make observations, but that is time consuming and difficult with the large family and lifestyle I have.
More often than not I am restricted to my back yard or the local cemetery for making observations.
This is a very interesting subject as well as data. This definitely needs to be a subject matter that is expanded upon. I would love to see more data in the following months that can be compared and built upon.
thank you for the detailed analyses. I think iNaturalist will be a stronger organization because of the detailed look at variables at play. It speaks to the dynamics of observations in a demographic and geographic lens. But also to learn of the “observations per observer” factor in a given state. I was also good to get a refresher course on scatterplots and coefficient of determination (R squared) {OLS} - back to the graduate school days - a long time ago…but I have to say the visual output was awesome - and gotta love the maps for showing the outcomes.
Three thoughts, regarding the CNC peak:
CNC was started in CA as a competition between LA and SF, so there has been longer participation, and a greater element of competitiveness.
CA, obviously, has more cities, which each have much greater populations than any in VT (or even the entire state.)
The largest city in VT, Burlington, has a pop. around 45,000.
The capital, Montpelier, has a pop. around 8,000.
The total pop. of VT is around 650,000.
It’s barely Spring in Vermont in April, so there is not as much to observe. Bare twigs, lichens, and dead plants or emerging shoots are hard to identify, insects are largely dormant, many birds have not returned, and it’s not uncommon to have snow.
And yet, despite the long, cold winters, we are a mighty force on iNaturalist, as illustrated by the per-capita participation statistics that originally inspired this thread!
I live in Rutherford County, which is the pale county, wider at the north than the south, on the border with South Carolina between the dark gray-blue Cleveland County on the east and the medium-dark gred Polk and Henderson counties on the west. I haven’t gone to the Blue Ridge Parkway to observe, though I’ve gone there to travel (less likely since Helene destroyed the road to the Hickory Nut Gap mountain pass). Most of my observations are either at home or at survey sites. My latest posted obs (I’ve since photoed a spider but haven’t gotten it from the camera) is a tree with a burl at or near a site I’ve finished surveying.
