Apps like Inaturalist, which allow you to share photos of wild animals or plants, quickly become a pillar of scientific research. Thousands of scientific publications are now based on this data.
In 2019, a hiker had photographed in northern China a strange fly resembling a bee. He shared the photo via the inaturalist app, where it was discovered by an entomologist. A year later, he published an article on the new species.
This is only one example among thousands of others of the way in which these apps become a gold mine for scientists, according to a study by the University of Florida on the phenomenon. The data helps them to map the evolution of the distribution of species, to detect invasive threats and to discover new species.
Enormous growth
‘The scientific use of Inaturalist has increased tenfold in the space of five years, closely following the growth of data from the platform,’ explains Brittany Mason, data management analyst at the University of Florida. ‘This shows how much the increase in observations, especially in less documented areas and on less studied species, can widen research perspectives.’
These apps have already sporadically aroused praise, for example when rediscovering supposedly disappeared species, or for the creation of detailed cards from the distribution of certain animals. But from the new analysis, it appears that this technology is increasingly used in the field of science, in this case to map the distribution areas and follow the migration of species. Thousands of scientific publications already cite observations from the app.
The authors noted that the platform is also used by organizations for the protection of nature, such as theInternational Union for Conservation of Natureto assess the state of endangered species and follow the spread of invasive organizations.
Essential tool
Inaturalist was launched in 2008 as a non -profit organization. The platform allows users to download photos or audio recordings of plants, animals, fungi and other organizations, as well as temporal and geographic data. A community of volunteers checks observations and shares all the contributions useful for research with the Global Biodiversity Information Facilityan international database that centralizes all data on biodiversity.
‘By contributing by their observations and their identifications, the simple citizens become important actors in the approach of one of the most urgent challenges to be met by the planet: the loss of biodiversity’, concludes Corey Callaghan, principal author of the study.
