Increasingly identification to a species level is requiring either microscopic, or even molecular level investigation. Or in the case of rodents an ability to look into their mouths and study their dental patterns, don’t recommend trying that with a live vole, can’t even picture it with a carnivore. …

I wish for one of those hand held instant DNA scanners everyday. Perhaps they are actually not too far off.

The main fault of field guides in many tropical areas is their non-existence.

[image] connlindajo: I wish for one of those hand held instant DNA scanners everyday. Perhaps they are actually not too far off. Apparently, some people are already using something similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RRSxWtJPUw

[image] mreith: The main fault of field guides in many tropical areas is their non-existence Couldn’t agree more. Here in Indonesia they are very much lacking especially for invertebrates (except for butterflies and dragonflies).

[image] jnstuart: The rampant taxonomic splitting that we are seeing now in many groups of organisms, based on biomolecular studies, might be going a little too far in many cases. Some correction of that may be coming in the future. Don’t throw away your field guides yet. Can‘t agree more wit…

There is another aspect of this question, when we talk of citizen science who are we addressing? A handheld DNA barcode devise is likely in academe, but is a critical part of projects like iNaturalist not involving more people, alibet “untrained” people in the natural world? I sit here with five di…

The only changes to the system that I think might possibly help this problem are being able to flag taxa to indicate that they are difficult to ID to species without special techniques and changing how “Based on the evidence, can the Community Taxon still be confirmed or improved?” works. Otherwise …

My hope with iNat is that the computer vision will someday get good enough to pick up on a large number of morphological characters that aren’t easily described in the text of a key, but that when considered en masse can confidently identify to a fine taxonomic level. For example, technical works …

[image] ddennism: I’d push back strongly on the comments here that imply that “molecular” splitting work is somehow undesirable. Species designations are hypotheses about population interactions: future, present, and historical. Of course genetic evidence is germane to informing those hypotheses…

When field guides fail

Nature Talk

upupa-epops December 1, 2019, 9:43pm 10

Also see this thread: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/the-future-of-dna-barcoding-and-its-use-in-citizen-science/2681

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When field guides fail

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