The Power of Community Science through iNaturalist

A few weeks ago, if you were visiting Harmon Canyon you might have crossed paths with Ventura Land Trust’s conservation team trolling the Preserve with nets and enthusiastically marveling at tiny creatures in clear vials. In a multi-day survey led by a contract entomologist, our team used beat sheets, sweep nets, aspirators, and pitfall traps to observe a broad range of invertebrate life, but arguably the most important tools employed were the cameras we used to collect high resolution photography and the app we used to document our observations.

VLT is using an online platform called iNaturalist to collaborate with our partner entomologist to catalogue the diversity of insects, spiders, and other invertebrate life in Harmon Preserve. Taking clear, closely cropped photos with smart phones that automatically embed location and date, we then upload our best images to our personal iNaturalist accounts which provide taxonomic suggestions. Once synced, anyone connected to iNaturalist can see our observations, including our entomologist who can then review and vet our observations. Over the span of a day and a half, our small team was able to document over 80 distinct invertebrate organisms, many of which were novel to our ever-growing species list.

iNaturalist is a global online platform for communicating observations of the life around us. Initially created as a Master’s project by a trio of students at UC Berkeley, it was dramatically expanded in a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, and became an independent nonprofit organization in 2023. It enables users to document and preliminarily identify plants, animals, fungi, and more, which is then vetted and confirmed by experts and enthusiasts around the world, building a unique database of biodiversity that includes details like location and seasonality.

Accessible via mobile app and web, iNaturalist empowers individuals to become community scientists, whether they're observing organisms in their homes, backyards, local parks, or remote wilderness areas. This data helps its users learn about and value nature and is uniquely valuable to researchers and land managers interested in biodiversity, environmental changes, and species distributions.

**Masked bees [Mariano preserve]**

*Hylaeus* sp.

There are numerous “projects” in iNaturalist that focus observations of specific interest. For example, Never Home Alone: The Wild Life of Homes highlights the fascinating diversity of our inside spaces. Many projects focus on specific geographic areas or taxonomic groups at regional, state, and sometimes broader scales, like Mapping Recovery in the Thomas Fire Scar, Southern California Squirrel Survey, Galls of California, and North American Animal Tracks Database (among thousands of others!). There are projects for major biological issues, like invasive species. Ventura and LA County Bad Beetle Watch is a project tracking presence of introduced invasive boring beetles that are significantly impacting native and agricultural trees in southern California. Joining a project allows your observations to be funneled into relevant user groups with a particular interest or expertise to vet your IDs and make use of your data.

Ventura Land Trust’s conservation mission in the wildlands we manage is to support and enhance biodiversity--the many thousands of unique life forms that have developed over millennia to live in our area--and ecological function--the complex and dynamic processes that support local biodiversity. Understanding who lives on our preserves is key to this mission, and iNaturalist, when used by numerous curious visitors, can be a powerful tool to expand our knowledge about species diversity. VLT has a collection project for every one of our 5 local properties (Harmon Canyon, Mariano, Big Rock, Willoughby, and Hayden). A collection is a project that gathers all the observations in a specific geographic area. This means than every photo observation made within that area and uploaded to iNaturalist is automatically added to our project and can be observed by us (or any iNaturalist user), sorted in numerous ways, and downloaded in a database that can be analyzed. You can check out and join our collection projects by typing in the name of a VLT preserve followed by “biodiversity” in the search window of the website (i.e. Harmon Canyon Preserve Biodiversity, Big Rock Preserve Biodiversity, etc.). You do not have to join the project to contribute—any observations you post to iNaturalist on our properties will automatically upload into our projects.

Below is a snapshot of our collection for Harmon Preserve, where 313 people have made 3,283 observations and documented 645 species across several taxonomic groups. Fifty-five percent of the observations made at Harmon are “research grade” meaning they have been confirmed by two or more independent viewers.

The iNaturalist identification algorithms are not perfect, and reviewers make mistakes, but good photos submitted by thousands of people is a phenomenally informative tool. Researchers and land managers around the world are using iNaturalist data to query important biological questions—from tracking changing species distributions and growth patterns in an increasingly developed and warming world, to monitoring new infestations of invasive species, to discovering new species to science.

If you are new to iNaturalist, or an existing user, here are some tips to getting started and to providing high quality, usable observations:

Create an Account. Using iNaturalist is free. You’ll need to choose a username, password, and attribute your account to an email address.
Download the App on your smart phone. iNaturalist is available on both iOS and Android. Uploading images from your smart phone is super easy and convenient. You can take photos while you explore, and later edit them and upload them on the app at a time of your choosing. Your phone collects metadata like location and time and those details will automatically embed in your observation.
Join Projects. From the app or online version you can join projects for specific interests, like Fungi of the California Floristic Province, Reptiles and Amphibians of Southern California, Ventura County Biodiversity Watch, or Harmon Canyon Preserve Biodiversity where your observations are funneled towards project subscribers that have a particular interest or expertise and can help vet your identification and learn from your contributions. You can use key words to search for projects of interest to you.
Document cool stuff! Explore, slow down, stay curious. When you see something interesting that you want to learn more about, take as many photos as necessary to capture its likeness. This includes taking photos at different angles to capture different characteristics. It is vital the photos are clear, detailed, and the subject fills the frame. If the photos are blurry or far away, your observation may not be able to be identified or used, so try to get as close as you can for a clear and detailed image and use the crop edit tool to fill the photo frame with your subject before uploading to the app. Be sure that your phone’s photo app has location information turned on--not knowing where the observation occurred limits its usefulness.
Attribute an Identification. When you are ready to upload your photo, you will be prompted to provide an identification and iNaturalist will offer suggestions with varying levels of confidence. It is not always right! You can select whatever it suggests, or you can do a little sleuthing to provide a more informed assessment. Do not leave your observation blank--include the highest taxonomic rank you feel comfortable designating even if you do not know the exact species. This can be as generic as listing your observation as a plant or an animal. This helps curators sort through observations and will improve your chances of getting an identification. You can include any pertinent information in the notes that you think might help give someone a fuller understanding of the object photographed.
Assign one or more projects. This is optional, but can be a great way to get your observation both vetted and used. For example, a moth specialist will be more likely to review your post if you are a member of Moths of California.
Share. When you’re ready, after you’ve added all your information, select share and your observation will sync. You can still edit information after syncing.
Explore iNaturalist online. While most users primarily engage in the app on their phones, interpretation and communications are largely conducted in their online software. When you log in, you can review your own observations and explore places, species, and projects, or communicate with other observers.
Check back! After posting an observation check it afterwards to see what it looks like for the community. You can add annotations or make edits, if needed. You may be surprised how quickly someone suggests an identification or comments on your observation.

Consider joining us! While the extraordinary pulse of life around us goes largely unnoticed by even the most observant of our species, together we can document, learn about, and celebrate the diversity and abundance all around us. Consider joining our local community science team contributing to iNaturalist to explore and marvel at the wonders in our midst!