Help Make Observations 'Research Grade' on iNaturalist Vermont

We all love sharing the amazing biodiversity we are finding across the Green Mountain State and beyond. Together, we've topped 3,000 species with nearly 40,000 observations in just over a year. But there is more we can do. Help us make this dataset even better by adding your identification to other observer's records. Its super easy and fun.

Click on 'Observations' on the right side bar of iNaturalist Vermont. Select 'search' on the right top. Then, under quality grade select 'casual'. If you hit search, there are over 12,000 observations without a second identification to help make them research grade. To narrow it down, try adding a taxon name, perhaps a favorite group you are good at identifying. I typed in frog and got 'frogs and toads'. I selected that option, hit search and got 79 observations to work on. Try it out and help us make this database stronger and help other users learn.

Publicado el agosto 19, 2014 05:48 TARDE por kpmcfarland kpmcfarland

Comentarios

I went through all the reptiles and amphibians, so there should be fewer 'casual' observations now than there were last week! But I'm curious, is there still a value in having observations that can never be research grade, due to missing dates, locations, or lack of images/sounds? Or should users avoid submitting observations without the key ingredients for making them 'research-grade'?

Publicado por larry522 hace más de 9 años

I think that all depends Larry. I think they do have value. For easy to ID species, it still helps with phenology and other things. And for really rare species, it could get us out looking harder in the location to document them. So, I guess, yes, they still have value for sure.

Publicado por kpmcfarland hace más de 9 años

I'd say observations without an image can still be very valuable especially if taken by someone who has also put in a lot of observations that DID have image and we have a feel that this person knows the taxa involved. Image without date may depend on the sort of organism... for plants it is definitely valuable unless they are so old that they may not be meaningful (and even those could be good in a historic context). Observations without good location data I'm not so big on. Unless it's a really rare obscure species or something, I don't see much value in those. In fact anything with an accuracy of over a few KM also seems fairly useless (to me), at least for plants. Maybe it matters less for animals that roam. I also kind of wish uncertainty buffer were required for research grade because some people plop observations on the map without much confidence in where it is, but without the buffer it looks exact. I haven't noticed much of that in Vermont but with some users of iNaturalist it is definitely the case.

Publicado por charlie hace más de 9 años

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