Introduction to iNaturalist

The purpose behind iNaturalist serves various stakeholders and citizens. At its core it encourages people to go outside and explore and discover what nature has to offer. It provides a service where people can photograph biota and identify it often down to the exact species. Not only does the app help you identify the organism pictured but it also allows others to contribute to that identification. In addition to species identification iNaturalist has become a data source for various scientific and environmental organizations. They can use the observations, locations and photos to contribute to their studies of biodiversity and species coverage across the globe. 

There are various people running the app and website the contributors can be found on their About link. In addition to their staff they have two major contributors to their initiative including California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic Society. While they are based in the US they have apps and communities on a global scale called the iNaturalist Network. 

For this citizen science project it is very easy to contribute. Simply download the app and begin logging photos and locations of photos. You can also assist other contributors by helping them identify pictures of organisms they have viewed as well. The more you log and identify the more you contribute to the data being collected and being verified. 

According to Microsoft, who is a major contributor to the iNaturalist platform, the apps data has been used and cited in scientific literature as a source for information. This has allowed scientists to continue or enhance their research of species that are difficult to find or across a wide range. The data collected from this app is shared with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility for just this purpose. This facility states its purpose as an international network and research infrastructure funded by the world's governments and aimed at providing anyone, anywhere, open access to data about all types of life on Earth (GBIF 2020). More then 60 publications have used the data from iNaturalist. From this app scientists have been able to identify new species as well as ones that were thought to be extinct. The conservation effort that it most contributes to is logging biodiversity on a global scale. Not only is this a large scale initiative that is contributed by hundreds of thousands of people but it is also vetted and verified for accuracy which is key to biodiversity studies (Chandler 2017). By including apps such as iNaturalists into databases can expand taxonomic, geographic, citizen science and community based monitoring programs. 

References: 

Costello, M., Turak, E., Regan, E. (2107, September). Contribution of citizen science towards international biodiversity monitoring. Biological Conservation. Vol (213), pg 280-294.

<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716303639?via%3Dihub>

Ray, S. (2018, April 19). Like taking a whole scientific team with you on a walk: iNaturalist helps spawn a generation of citizen scientists. Microsoft News. <https://news.microsoft.com/features/like-taking-a-whole-scientific-team-with-you-on-a-walk-inaturalist-helps-spawn-a-generation-of-citizen-scientists/> 

https://www.inaturalist.org

https://www.gbif.org