1. Practical Uses of the iNaturalist Website and Dataset
Lindsey Wise
Oregon Biodiversity Information Center
February 2016

5. Free
All taxa
Worldwide
Taxonomy maintained
Active members
Good mobile compatibility
Taps into: EOL GBIF NatureServe

8. Observation Data Photos Date & Time
Map with nearby observations of similar species
Lat/Long Coordinates
Accuracy information
Geoprivacy:
By observation
By species status

9. No need to ID yourself, community pitches in to ID unknowns
More agreement = higher credibility; up to “Research Grade”

10. Users discuss IDs, share resources, can invite others to review

11. Additional Quality Assessments
Accurate location?
Species ranges
Habitat
Accurate date?
Seasonality
Appropriate report?
Spam
Copyright
Wild/naturalized?
Garden plants, pets

12. Projects are where it’s at. You can:
Set rules
Geographic boundary
Species list
Required information
Add curators to help manage project
Quickly add observations that fit project criteria
Connect with interested people
Use creative commons licensing to export and use data in other applications

14. Visual Species Lists

15. More Project Features
Communicate with members via journal posts or private messages
Bulk upload or bulk tag observations into projects
Custom search for matching observations
Export to KML, CSV

16. Recent Oregon invasive species observations

17. It Works!! Teacher takes photo of plant outside classroom
Looks suspicious, pass on to local manager
Site visit – confirmed List A Noxious Weed
Treatment starts w participation of school

18. Incidental sighting of a federal species of concern, Gorge fleabane
Our last info from 1988
Evidence that population is still healthy

19. Majority of observations have a Creative Commons license
Open source system
Majority of observations have a Creative Commons license
Explore data in other programs
charts courtesy Matthew Muir (top) and Cassi Saari (right) using 2013 data

20. What can you do with iNaturalist?
Build your own life list
See what people are finding in your area
Find observations of species of interest
Help with identifications!
Host a BioBlitz
Manage volunteer surveys
Solicit specific information for your projects
Export data for your own analysis
and more

21. Go Forth and Observe!