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In the Outdoors Scot Stewart
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CITIZEN SCIENTISTS
iNaturalist invites everyone to track, identify the multitudes of earth’s creatures and organisms
Story and photos by Scot Stewart
“If you lose the power of wonder, you grow old, no matter how old you are. If you HAVE the power of wonder, you are forever young--the whole world is pristine and new and exciting.” - Sigurd Olson in “The Wilderness World of Sigurd F. Olson”
Ihave written a few things, but only once before was it in the first person. I just haven’t. It seemed better to me that way. Citizen science, though, has caught me by the tail and it just seems different. When I watched an old video, yeah, a video on a VHS tape, recently about Sigurd Olson, one of my heroes, it just struck a note inside and helped me understand something driving me particularly hard this summer as I have been out photographing and putting my photos to work.
Several years ago, a wise and good friend told me about iNaturalist, a citizen science website, developed by three Master’s students, to track sightings and sounds of literally all the Earth’s living organisms. Like many of the internet’s technological creatures, it took a little work to learn how to use it, and my short attention span soon left it. Last June, I took a second look and quickly decided I really liked it. It helped me identify the animals, plants, fungi, and other living things I was finding, but it also did something else, having a great effect on me. iNaturalist is set up for outdoor lovers, photographers, biologists, and others to post photographs or sound recordings of species they encounter to a website www. iNaturalist.com, with information about the location, date, and time of the find, in the discoverer’s account. Currently over 80,000,000 posts have been made by 1,800,000+ observers around the world. Nearly 100,000 new observations are being made daily. Summers in the northern hemisphere probably produce a higher number of submissions than summers in the southern hemisphere just because there is more to report in the greater land mass with its summer activity of life, so it may slow in the winter months here. iNaturalist was created in 2008 at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information as a master’s degree Final Project. Currently it is managed by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society. “...an online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature,” is how the site describes itself.
It is an amazing place. I describe it this way because, to many of us, it seems more than just a website. The site is a place where anyone could post an image of an
If you should come across an unknown creature, such as this ring-necked snake, a nocturnal creature found throughout much of the United States and parts of Canada, you can look up more information about it on the iNaturalist app.
A species of lentaria fungus grows on rotting wood.
organism they had found and get help identifying and/or contributing to a new bank of science. Initially, and even more so today, it’s a site where contributors could get help confirming the identity or get suggestions for organisms they found.
First, it is good to know that in my youth there were just two groups (or scientifically, Kingdoms) of living things – the animals and the plants. I had books to help me learn about both as I wandered through the fields and woods then. It was easy to flip through them, and usually I found something that came close to what I saw.
Today there are five, six or seven kingdoms, depending on which source you consult, with possibly more on the way as other planets, like Mars, are explored -- who knows? Besides animals and plants, there are the Fungi (mushrooms, mildews and molds), Protists (mostly one-celled organisms like amoebas), for some, Chromista (one-celled and multi-celled organisms, like diatoms and algae, making their own food through photosynthesis using cell parts called chromatids) and two groups of bacteria formerly lumped together as Monera, now divided by some as Archaea/Archaebacteria (primitive, extreme bacteria), and Bacteria/Eubacteria (more prominent, commonly recognizable bacteria).
When I began looking for birds, insects, and flowers, I used a wide range of field guides, like the Golden Guides for kids and the Peterson Field Guides. Roger Tory Peterson started the series with his first popular bird book in 1934. These gave me enough information to have a pretty good idea of what I was seeing.
Not only are there more divisions of life today, but it turns out those field guides (and most guides today), usually showed two or three different species of the kinds of trees, flowers, birds, or insects I was looking for, but what I did not know was that for many, like asters, water striders and wasps, there were actually 20, 30, or even 50
different kinds around! Obviously, there is a lot of science here for amateur nature lovers, but for those just trying to find out what they have found, it is a fascinating process made much easier with iNaturalist. It also opens eyes as we realize just how diverse the natural world around us actually is!
But iNaturalist offers so much more. Scientifically it has been a boon for scientists. It has become a way to map the distribution of species across the globe, as species have expanded their ranges due to global warming. This is especially important for invasive species. It has also helped provide information about the actual ranges of species as more sightings are logged into the site. Date and time stamps in digital photograph metadata are added to the observation when photographs are added. Valuable information about flowering, adult emergence, mating, and more key phenology information is also added to provide additional insights about the organism for research. Timing information is now also proving to be critical for managing stop-over sites for birds and insects like shorebirds and monarch butterflies during migration. Planting key food plants, reducing construction activity and other management decisions can be aided with this information. Key breeding habitats can also be more effectively identified and preserved.
I was lucky enough to take my students outside one morning at Bothwell Middle School, and as we moved away from the doors, a student exclaimed, “Look at this!” It was a black witch moth; one I had not known before, let alone seen. Eventually, I posted our sighting on iNaturalist and saw less than 15 sightings had been reported there from locations north of Marquette. Its normal range runs from just south of us to southern Argentina. It was a great example of how more feet on the ground and more eyes (and cameras) can help define a species and its place in the world.
The camera is key to making iNaturalist work properly. Many of my sightings have not been properly confirmed by experts and curators, individuals who look to have specific groups of organisms flagged for notification by them. As I have posted some groups, I have noticed some never seem to get the identifications confirmed or get an identification disagreement from anyone. I have begun asking what I need to show in my photographs to get more identification feedback. For some ants, it is a microscopic view showing the hairs on the ants. For spiders, it is a microscopic look at the backs of the pedipalps, the leg-like structures in front of their mouths. These kinds of documentation require capture and more to get them under the microscope, something that is not always possible or desirable.
Information about where the photograph is taken is always helpful too. For fungi and a group of organisms called galls, the host for them is important. Many mushrooms grow on specific sites, like certain kinds of tree stumps or logs. Galls are even more specific. They are growths found on plants caused by specific agents, fungi, mites, wasps, flies, and other organisms, usually causing a swelling of the plant tissue. Probably the best known gall in the U.P. is the goldenrod (https:// hort.extension.wisc.edu/ articles/goldenrod-gallfly-eurosta-solidagnis/). For many insects and mites, their eggs are laid inside part of a plant, and it is believed the young produce chemicals that create stems, leaves or other areas to become enlarged to accommodate the young. Fly galls appear as golf ball-sized lumps on the stems of these yellow roadside flowers.
Last year, I found a spectacular gall in the flowers of a native shrub, ninebark, along the Dead River in north Marquette. The shrub is a wetland species usually found growing in swamps, along creeks, ponds, and rivers. Curators looking at the original submission I made asked what species of plant the gall was found in, then asked which specific part of the plant it
was invading. Eventually it was determined no gall species had been identified in the flowers of ninebark. Next spring, I will look for it again and see if we can determine what might be in the flowers causing the gall by collecting developing galls to see what is living inside. iNaturalist also has an interesting feature to find out where organisms can be found. For someone hoping to find a certain bird, to look for a frog or to find out when a flower might be found blooming in a certain area, this is a great tool. There are features in the reporting portion to hide the exact locations of threatened, endangered or sensitive species so they continue to receive proper protection, but the data is added to the site for research purposes. iNaturalist has two other options I find particularly delightful. One is their
“Explore.” It shows recent posts from around the world, offering a chance to see what else is being seen each day and to check out the observations from other naturalists by clicking on their names.
The second option is
“Follow.” This feature sends you the new observations from selected naturalists.
They are notified that you are enjoying their photographs and notes that they took the day after they are made. You can get a daily fix from the rain forests of the Amazon or Sumatra, or the tundra of Siberia.
The international aspects of iNaturalist are one of the best parts. Not only can you see life from around the world, you can interact with the biologists and naturalists living there. When you create a post, iNaturalist makes suggestions regarding the identity of the organism. You can choose a suggestion or make your own and post the photograph along with the location and the date of the photograph. Then other naturalists can view your observation and confirm your identification, suggest a different identification, or back up the ID to a less specific classification due to insufficient information in the photograph(s). Because some curators and other individuals who regularly check regional or organism groups for specific entries look in on submissions from around the world, an observation can be reviewed by a world authority from just about anywhere. I have had an Equisetum species, or scouring rush, from Alger County identified by Radek Walkowiak, the Program Manager and Botanist at The International Equisitological Association. He lives in Poland. Slime molds are interesting protists found in the rotting wood and plants in the woods of the U.P. Some have interesting names like white carnival candy slime mold, wolf’s milk, salmon eggs slime mold, and dog vomit slime mold. The respective colors of these are white, pink then chocolate brown, orange and yellow. They are great to find when the weather turns wet in the fall. One of the best authorities is Sarah Lloyd from Tasmania. She has helped me with several questions I have had. Like most of the premiere biologists on iNaturalist, she is extremely accessible and helpful with identifications and information. Some curators have reviewed more than 500,000 submissions, so they are true experts! iNaturalist offers means to add to or access the site from computer and phone so the process can be quick, but the site, like many on the Internet can be addictive. It is definitely educational, relaxing, and just plain fun to see what else lives in our world and who is watching it! And when you do find something new, like a ring-necked snake, a Lentaria fungus or a whitefaced meadowhawk dragonfly you can usually find out more about it at iNaturalist.
Have you ever seen a About the author: Scot Stewart has western scouringrush? Per- lived in Marquette long enough to be haps known more commonly considered a true Yooper even though he as the rough horsetail, this was born in Illinois. He is a teacher and plant is found in wet or damp loves to be outdoors photographing and areas and can grow from enjoying nature.
