To those of you who use the “Interaction->” observation fields: What do you think is the right one to use for the plant/insect interaction of a predator that lives on a plant, using it as a base of operations (say, for eating the aphid population or for ambushing pollinators)? The only one that seems applicable is “Visited plant” (description “For insects that are on plants but not feeding” [feeding on the plant, I suppose]) but that’s kind of too broad and suggests an only temporary association.
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if you don’t see one that fits, just make your own.
For any unspecific or not clearly detectable plant relationship I use ‘Name of associated plant’ - which is, as I realize now, is not what you wanted as you specified the use of the Interaction-> fields set, so apologies for this digressive answer.
However, I want to mention that I basically use above field in all cases (or, in addition to) when I cannot address a clear assocation with the plant
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You can mark that an insect is a pollinator predator with this field
https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/11177
I don’t know of any pollinator predator that is plant specific. The colored ones that I’ve heard of that mimic flower colors actually find any flower and then change to that flower’s color rather than finding a flower that matches their body color.
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So you’re saying that there’s no reason to note what exactly the insect in question is doing on the plant, whether it’s perching or residing? I’m not sure of that. The existence of a vague field like “visited plant” seems to indicate that someone felt that all observations of insects on plants were worth annotating. They didn’t think that just being on a plant was unworthy of notice. So I suspect they’d be happy for more specific information than that.
No that’s not what I meant. Please don’t generalize my specific statement. Specifically for insects that ambush pollinators by living on flowers, there doesn’t seem to be any interest in exactly what species of plant they are on. It could be that they don’t have a preference for specific species. But who knows, if you create an observation field for it, you may find a pattern.
I don’t think “visited plant” is appropriate for this situation since they aren’t visiting the plant, they are living on it for an extended time.
The pollinator predator field is used in a pollination project. They want to know interactions these pollinators have with other organism: what plants they pollinate, what other species of pollinators they associate with, and what organisms prey on them.
I’ve never used the field “Interaction->Visited plant”. There aren’t any projects using it. Also a lot of people are using it for feeding on the plant because they didn’t see the description. I see another field “Plant species visited” being used by a couple projects. They might need to be combined.
Usually I see people use " Interaction->Visited flower of" to list the species of plant and then have a second field with “yes/no/unknown” choices asking about what the organism was doing. And you can use a third field “Associated observation” or “Reference URL” to link to the obs of the plant being interacted with. “Plant species visited” or “Interaction->Visited plant” could be used the same way.
PS I went to look to see what fields I used for my photo of a butterfly laying eggs. I used:
Insect Host Plant: Ticktrefoils Genus Desmodium
(Plant on which eggs were deposited/larva feeding)
and
Insect-Host Plant Interaction: Ovipositing
(Activity/Stage of Insect When Observed)
I could use “Interaction->Visited plant” or “Plant species visited” also in this situation but the observation is not in a project that asks for these fields so it seems redundant to use them.
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