What is iNaturalist?: A short answer for Merck Forest's purposes!

We hope you’re getting excited for the 3rd Annual Merck Forest BioBlitz!

Check out this Facebook post or this iNaturalist guide if you’re still wondering what a BioBlitz is. At Merck Forest, we use iNaturalist to document BioBlitz data in addition to year-round monitoring of life on the property. Today we are going to explain a bit about what iNaturalist is and how it works.

According to iNaturalist.org, “iNaturalist provides a place to record and organize nature findings, meet other nature enthusiasts, and learn about the natural world.” iNaturalist is a key player in the recent citizen science movement which encourages anybody to gather scientific data about the world around them. iNaturalist, and other platforms like it such as eBird, have allowed scientists, private and public landowners, and natural resource managers to access new data they would have never had the time or workforce to obtain.

The main mode of gathering data in iNaturalist, and during Merck Forest’s BioBlitz, is through “observations.” An observation records an encounter with an individual organism at a particular time and location. For the purpose of Merck’s BioBlitz effort, this is a picture of an organism that provides enough detail to identify it. Making an observation for most users is as easy as taking a picture, uploading it to iNaturalist, giving it some sort of identification (don’t worry, iNaturalist helps you with this!), and submitting!

Check out this iNaturalist page for answers to all your questions about what iNaturalist and observations are, and check out today’s Observation of the Day for a great example of an observation! Note the quality of the picture, the time, date, and location, and an identification made by the observer.

We hope this has resolved some uncertainties and built some confidence in you on-the-fence-ers, and we encourage you to get out and try iNaturalist before coming to Merck Forest's 3rd Annual BioBlitz on July 24th and 25th!

Links
Merck Forest Website Event Page
Merck Forest Registration Page
iNaturalist Project Page
Facebook Event Page

Posted on June 28, 2021 05:52 PM by maxmiley