2026-06-08T10:17:29Zhttps://docta.ucm.es/rest/oai/request

oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/1198522025-05-06T23:54:09Zcom_20.500.14352_14col_20.500.14352_15

Strengths and Challenges of Using iNaturalist in Plant Research with Focus on Data Quality López Guillén, Eduard Herrera, Ileana Bensid, Badis Gómez Bellver, Carlos Ibáñez, Neus Jiménez Mejías, Pedro Mairal Pisa, Mario José Mena García, Laura Nualart, Neus Utjés Mascó, Mònica López Pujol, Jordi 58 582.3/.99 004.78:316.77 574.3 Alien plants Citizen science Conservation Monitoring Species discovery Threatened species Botánica (Biología) Internet (Informática) Ecología (Biología) 2417 Biología Vegetal (Botánica) 2417.20 Taxonomía Vegetal 1203.17 Informática 2417.13 Ecología Vegetal This research was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain (project PID2020-119163GB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and by the Generalitat de Catalunya, Government of Catalonia, Spain (“Ajuts a grups de recerca consolidats”, grant no. 2021SGR00315). The Research Center of the Universidad Espiritu Santo funded part of this research (2022-ING-002, to Ileana Herrera). Mario Mairal and Pedro Jiménez-Mejías were supported by Fundación Española para la Ciencia y la Tecnología - Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Project FCT-22-17747). iNaturalist defines itself as an “online social network of people sharing biodiversity information to help each other learn about nature” and it is likely one of the largest citizen science web portals in the world, as every year millions of observations across thousands of species are gathered and collectively compiled by an engaged community of nearly 3 million users (November 2023). The strengths and potentialities that explain the success of the platform are reviewed and include, among others, its usability and low technical requirements, immediacy, open-access, the possibility of interacting with other users, artificial-intelligence-aided identification, versatility and automatic incorporation of the validated records to GBIF. iNaturalist has, however, features that scientists need to carefully consider when using it for their research, making sure that the quality of observations does not limit or hinder its usefulness in plant research. While these are identified (e.g., the lack of representative photographs for many observations or the relatively frequent identification errors), we provide some suggestions to overcome them and, by doing so, improve the use and add value to iNaturalist for plant research. Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España) Generalitat de Catalunya Universidad Espíritu Santo (Ecuador) Depto. de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución Fac. de Ciencias Biológicas TRUE pub 2025-05-06T12:02:46Z 2025-05-06T12:02:46Z 2024-01-09 journal article VoR https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/119852 1424-2818 10.3390/d16010042 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICINN/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020/PID2020-119163GB-I00/GENOMICA DEL PAISAJE Y DINAMICA DE NICHO EN PLANTAS INVASORAS DE ORIGEN HIBRIDO info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/Generalitat de Catalunya//2021SGR00315 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MICIU//Project FCT-22-17747/BIOMARATÓN DE FLORA ESPAÑOLA: HACIA EL FIN DE LA CEGUERA VEGETAL López-Guillén, E., Herrera, I., Bensid, B., Gómez-Bellver, C., Ibáñez, N., Jiménez-Mejías, P., Mairal, M., Mena-García, L., Nualart, N., Utjés-Mascó, M., & López-Pujol, J. (2024). Strengths and Challenges of Using iNaturalist in Plant Research with Focus on Data Quality. Diversity, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/D16010042 Attribution 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access application/pdf MDPI