Using iNaturalist in the College Classroom

Sharing and usingbiodiversity data with (open science AND citizen science)

Presentation at Earlham College

By Carrie E. Seltzer, Ph.D. (Earlham ’04)

March 31, 2016

iNaturalist makes it easy for people to share what they see

C.E. Seltzer. CC BY

Elements of an observation

C.E. Seltzer. CC BY

What? Who? When?

Where?

Details?

Community ID

Evidence (photo or sound)

iNaturalist has an underlying taxonomy

• Observations should somehow be attached to the tree of life (i.e. not rocks, water, trash, etc.)

• Observations can be attached at any taxonomic level

C.E. Seltzer. CC BY

Crowd source species IDs

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Research quality observations need peer reviewed

identifications

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

Working together to hang observations

on the Tree of Life

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

Automatically protect sensitive species

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Open data for use and re-use

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

US iNat OccurrencesUS Species US Occurrences

Unlocking other Taxa with Social Networks

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

Monarch Occurrences in GBIF

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

60% from iNat - 98% from iNat this decade

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

All Recent United States Monarch Occurrences (2006-2015)

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

All United States Butterfly and Moth Occurrences in GBIF

Scott Loarie, iNaturalist

BioBlitz: an intensive survey of a defined area, inventorying as many species as possible in a

short amount of time.

Why it’s great for BioBlitzes

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Find one! natgeo.org/bioblitz

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Resources and ideas for the classroom

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Manage your class as a project

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Communicate with students

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Export Data

• Use for analysis or tracking student work

• Filter data and select relevant fields to export data as .csv or .kml (for Google Earth)

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Analyze and Visualize Data

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

GBIF

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI)

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

Create Species Guides

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

What CAN’T you do with iNaturalist?

• Abiotic recording/monitoring (water quality, precipitation, temperature, air quality, etc.)

• Recording/mapping entire plant communities

• Absence (iNat is best for presence-only)

• Difficult to record metadata around sampling effort

• Not a GIS itself, but you can use the data in another GIS.

C.E. Seltzer, National Geographic. CC BY

How many species on campus?

C.E. Seltzer. CC BY

Only 170 observers!

C.E. Seltzer. CC BY

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