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iNaturalist

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iNaturalist
Type of site
Citizen science
Available in56[1]languages
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)
  • Ken-ichi Ueda
  • Nate Agrin
  • Jessica Kline
URLinaturalist.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
UsersIncrease7.6million registered users (May 2024)[2]
Launched2008;16 years ago(2008)
Current statusActive

iNaturalistis an American501(c)(3) nonprofitsocial networkofnaturalists,citizen scientists,andbiologistsbuilt on the concept of mapping and sharing observations ofbiodiversityacross the globe.[3][4]iNaturalist may be accessed via its website or from itsmobile applications.[5][6]iNaturalist includes an automated species identification tool, and users further assist each other in identifying organisms from photographs. As of 9 July 2024,iNaturalist users had contributed approximately 197,660,888 observations of plants, animals, fungi, and otherorganismsworldwide, and 290,007 users were active in the previous 30 days.

iNaturalist describes itself as "an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature", with its primary goal being to connect people to nature.[7]Although it is not a science project itself, iNaturalist is a platform for science and conservation efforts, providing valuableopen datato research projects, land managers, other organizations, and the public.[7][8]It is the primary application for crowd-sourced biodiversity data in places such as Mexico, southern Africa, and Australia,[9][10][11]and the project has been called "a standard-bearer fornatural historymobile applications. "[12]Most of iNaturalist's software isopen source.[13]Scientists have published more than 4,000 papers drawn from iNaturalist data sets and observations,[14]including descriptions of species new to science and rediscoveries of species so rarely seen they were feared extinct.

History[edit]

iNaturalist began in 2008 as aUC BerkeleySchool of InformationMaster's final project of Nate Agrin, Jessica Kline, and Ken-ichi Ueda.[3]Agrin and Ueda continued work on the site with Sean McGregor, a web developer. In 2011, Ueda began collaboration with Scott Loarie, a research fellow atStanford Universityand lecturer at UC Berkeley. Ueda and Loarie are the current co-directors of iNaturalist.org.[3]The organization merged with theCalifornia Academy of Scienceson April 24, 2014.[15]In 2017, iNaturalist became a joint initiative between the California Academy of Sciences and theNational Geographic Society.[3]

Since 2012, the number of participants and observations has roughly doubled each year.[16]In 2014, iNaturalist reached 1million observations[17]and as of October 2023there were 181million observations (163million verifiable).[note 1][18]

On 11 July 2023, iNaturalist became registered as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.[19]

Platforms[edit]

Man in baseball cap in a prairie taking a photo of a pink wildflower with his smartphone
Taking a photo ofAsclepias amplexicaulis(clasping milkweed) for iNaturalist
iNaturalist website screenshot with photo of a pink flower on left and details with a map on the right
Screenshot of an observation at iNaturalist.org withCC-BYphoto license type indicated

Users can interact with iNaturalist in several ways:

Seek's home page, showing local species and the Challenge for November 2021.

On the iNaturalist.org website, visitors can search the public dataset and interact with other people adding observations and identifications. The website provides tools for registered users to add, identify, and discuss observations, write journal posts, explore information about species, and create project pages to recruit participation in and coordinate work on their topics of interest.[22][23][24]

On the iNaturalist mobile app, registered users can create and share nature observations to the online dataset, explore observations both nearby and around the world, and learn about different species.[22][25]

Seek by iNaturalist, a separate app marketed to families, requires no online account registration and all observations may remain private.[26]Seek incorporates features ofgamification,such as providing a list of nearby organisms to find and encouraging the collection of badges and participation in challenges.[27]Seek was initially released in the spring of 2018.[26]

Observations[edit]

The iNaturalist platform is based oncrowdsourcingof observations and identifications. An iNaturalist observation records a person's encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and place.[22]An iNaturalist observation may also record evidence of an organism, such asanimal tracks,nests,orscat.The scope of iNaturalist excludes natural but inert subjects such asgeologicorhydrologicfeatures. Users typically upload photos as evidence of their findings, though audio recordings are also accepted, and such evidence is not a strict requirement. Users may share observation locations publicly, "obscure" them to display a less precise location or make the locations completely private.

On iNaturalist, other users add identifications to each other's observations in order to confirm or improve the identification of the observation.[22]Observations are classified as "Casual", "Needs ID" (needs identification), or "Research Grade" based on the quality of the data provided and the community identification process.[22]Any quality of data can be downloaded from iNaturalist and "Research Grade" observations are often incorporated into other online databases such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and theAtlas of Living Australia.[8][28]

Automated species identification[edit]

In addition to observations being identified by others in the community, iNaturalist includes anautomated species identificationtool, first released in 2017.[29]Images can be identified via acomputer visionmodel which has been trained on the large database of the observations on iNaturalist.[22]Multiple species suggestions are typically provided with the suggestion that the software guesses to be most likely is at the top of the list. A broadertaxonsuch as agenusorfamilyis commonly provided if the model is unsure of the species. It is trained once or twice a year, and the threshold for species included in the training set has changed over time.[30]It can be difficult for the model to guess correctly if the species in question is infrequently observed or hard to identify from images alone; or if the image submitted has poor lighting, is blurry, or contains multiple subjects.

Projects[edit]

Using the iNaturalistapp

Users have created and contributed to tens of thousands of different projects on iNaturalist.[18][31]The platform is commonly used to record observations duringbioblitzes,which are biological surveying events that attempt to record all the species that occur within a designated area, and a specific project type on iNaturalist.[32][33][34]Other project types include collections of observations by location or taxon or documenting specific types of observations such as animal tracks and signs,[35]the spread ofinvasive species,roadkill,[36]fishingcatches, or discovering new species.[23]In 2011, iNaturalist was used as a platform to power the Global Amphibian and Global Reptile BioBlitzes, in which observations were used to help monitor the occurrence and distribution of the world's reptiles and amphibian species.[37]The USNational Park Servicepartnered with iNaturalist to record observations from the 2016 National Parks BioBlitz. That project exceeded 100,000 observations in August 2016.[32]In 2017, theUnited Nations Environment Programmeteamed up with iNaturalist to celebrateWorld Environment Day.[38].In 2022,Reef Ecologicteamed up with iNaturalist to celebrateWorld Oceans Day.

City Nature Challenge[edit]

Main article:City Nature Challenge

In 2016, Lila Higgins from theNatural History Museum of Los Angeles Countyand Alison Young from theCalifornia Academy of Sciencesco-founded the City Nature Challenge (CNC). In the first City Nature Challenge, naturalists inLos Angelesand theSan Francisco Bay Areadocumented over 20,000 observations with the iNaturalist platform.[39]In 2017, the CNC expanded to 16 cities across the United States and collected over 125,000 observations of wildlife in 5 days.[40]The CNC expanded to a global audience in 2018, with 68 cities participating from 19 countries, with some cities usingcommunity scienceplatforms other than iNaturalist to participate.[33]In 4 days, over 17,000 people cataloged over 440,000 nature observations in urban regions around the world.[41]In 2019, the CNC once again expanded, with 35,000 participants in 159 cities collecting 964,000 observations of over 31,000 species.[33]Although fewer observations were documented during the 2020 City Nature Challenge during theCOVID-19 pandemic(when the CNC became collaborative as opposed to competitive), more cities and people participated, and more species were found than in previous years.[42]

Licensing[edit]

Users have the option to license their observations, photos, and audio recordings in several ways, including for thepublic domain,Creative Commons,or withall rights reserved.To encourage the sharing of information and to reduce costs, iNaturalist encourages users to license media withCreative Commons licenses.[43]The default license isCC BY-NC,[43]meaning others are free to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon the media as long as appropriate credit is given, changes are indicated, a link to the license is provided, and it is not used for commercial purposes.[44]

Observations and media licensed with Creative Commons licenses are often shared elsewhere, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (excludingshare-alikeandno derivativeslicenses),[45]Atlas of Living Australia,[46]andWikipedia(excluding noncommercial and no derivatives licenses)[47]through regular imports[22][46]or user scripts such as iNaturalist2Commons[48]and Wiki Loves iNaturalist.[49]

The iNaturalist website and mobile apps areopen-source softwarereleased under theMIT License.[13][50]

Research[edit]

As of January 2024, more than 4,000[14]research papers have been published that cite the iNaturalist research-grade observations hosted on theGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility(GBIF), often in the fields of ecology, conservation, and climate change.[51]Many articles focus on climate-driven range shifts and expansions. For example, in 2015, data from iNaturalist was used to show that theHopkin's rose nudibranch(Ceratodoris rosacea) is moving northward.[52]

Other published research focuses on the description of new species or rediscovery of species previously considered extinct. For example, a species of snail,Myxostoma petiverianum,first described in the 1700s, was also rediscovered inVietnam.[53]Additionally, in 2013, a citizen scientist in Colombia uploaded a photo of apoison dart frog,which researchers determined was a previously unrecognized species now known asAndinobates cassidyhornae.[54][55]In 2023, a species ofmantisfirst discovered with the aid of iNaturalist was namedInimia natso that its abbreviated form,I. nat,would be aword playthat pays homage to iNaturalist.[56]TheColumbian weasel,the rarestneotropicalcarnivore, was seen for the first time in the 21st century when an iNaturalist user uploaded snapshots of the weasel exploring a privy.[57]Two teenagers in California used iNaturalist observations of unfamiliar scorpions as the first step in their eventual description of two new species.[58]Thefrosted phoenix mothof New Zealand, feared extinct, was "rediscovered" when a Swedish birder who was in town to seekiwisput up a light to attract moths and snapped a casual photo of an insect that had parked itself under a lawn chair on his hotel balcony; his upload to iNaturalist was the first time the moth had been seen alive in 65 years.[59]

Other research has focused on themorphologyor coloration of species observations. For example, a study in 2019 assessed the relationship between wing coloration and temperature in thedragonflyspeciesPachydiplax longipennis.[60]

Graphs[edit]

  • Semi-log plot of annual changes in number of species observed (in thousands; green) and number of verifiable[note 1] observations (in millions; black).
    Semi-log plotof annual changes in number of species observed (in thousands; green) and number of verifiable[note 1]observations (in millions; black).
  • Relative proportions of verifiable[note 1] observations according to taxonomic group as of January 2022
    Relative proportions of verifiable[note 1]observations according to taxonomic group as of January 2022

Notes[edit]

  1. ^abcOn iNaturalist, an observation is "verifiable" if it has no penalties in its Data Quality Assessment. Observations lacking a date, location, or media are automatically penalised, and users may grant penalties if they deem that the date or location is inaccurate, that there is no evidence or no recent evidence of an organism, or that the organism is not wild. Non-verifiable observations are hidden from view by default, unless expressly enabled.

References[edit]

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External links[edit]

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