An overview of the history, current contributions and future outlook of iNaturalist in Australia

Abstract

Citizen science initiatives and the data they produce are increasingly common in ecology, conservation and biodiversity monitoring. Although the quality of citizen science data has historically been questioned, biases can be detected and corrected for, allowing these data to become comparable in quality to professionally collected data. Consequently, citizen science is increasingly being integrated with professional science, allowing the collection of data at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales. iNaturalist is one of the most popular biodiversity citizen science platforms globally, with more than 1.4 million users having contributed over 54 million observations. Australia is the top contributing nation in the southern hemisphere, and in the top four contributing nations globally, with over 1.6 million observations of over 36000 identified species contributed by almost 27000 users. Despite the platform’s success, there are few holistic syntheses of contributions to iNaturalist, especially for Australia. Here, we outline the history of iNaturalist from an Australian perspective, and summarise, taxonomically, temporally and spatially, Australian biodiversity data contributed to the platform. We conclude by discussing important future directions to maximise the usefulness of these data for ecological research, conservation and policy.

Citizen science in cities: an overview of projects focused on urban Australia

“…To do so, additional investment in support infrastructure and tools, standards and training are required. While issues with data quality and interoperability have been given the most prominence in the literature (Bonney et al 2014;Chandler et al 2017), recent studies have documented that accuracy can be comparable to expert-collected data provided that the proper training and tools are used (Aceves-Bueno et al 2017;Mesaglio and Callaghan 2021). While we acknowledge a citizen science approach is not always appropriate (e.g.…”

“…Changes in urban environments require close and careful monitoring, and participation in citizen science has the potential to grow public appreciation and understanding of nature and an awareness that it is not confined to wild spaces. In doing so, citizen science can be a quantitative lens to observe our urban environments that can lead to increased understanding of them and how they change, (Callaghan et al 2019;Mesaglio and Callaghan 2021) and provide an opportunity for urban residents to reconnect with nature (Ives et al 2018). Such connections can be enabled by networks such as the Clean Air and Urban Landscape Hub (CAUL) in Australia (https:// nespu rban.…”

“…While we acknowledge a citizen science approach is not always appropriate (e.g. safety, technical requirements, sensitive data), the citizen science and research communities need to elevate discussions of and advocacy for citizen science, and demonstrate that, when properly resourced, citizen science can deliver comparable data and results with the potential to inform policy (Mesaglio and Callaghan 2021). This is especially true for urban environments where the majority of the world's people now reside.…”

“…We excluded them as they are not discreet projects but rather a means to collect data at any time and in any environment. Their exclusion from our analysis does not mean that we do not perceive value in this approach and recognise that ad hoc observations are providing valuable data (Mesaglio and Callaghan 2021). We also acknowledge there are additional citizen science projects not listed in the Project Finder, such as school-based projects or those with fixed participants.…”

Mapping oysters on the Pacific coast of North America: A coast-wide collaboration to inform enhanced conservation

“…iNaturalist is the most widely used multi-taxon, on-line database for community wildlife monitoring. It holds promise for assessing more obscure marine and rare species because there are many contributors cataloguing entries in many places and a relatively low technological/scientific threshold for participation [ 76 ].…”