Background
Citizen Science is a way of collection of scientific data through crowdsourcing methods. With the advent of GPS and high quality camera equipped smart phones, numerous organizations have created mobile applications that equip the average citizen to take photos and document species across the globe. Even if the species are unknown or misidentified, other citizen scientists can review photos to confirm or deny accurate identification. Additionally, for those willing to learn, these apps give the user the ability to learn from others ID tricks and apply these to their own field excursions.
That's my brief review of Citizen Science. It does have its caveats, but overall citizen science increases the amount of amateur scientists in the field documenting millions of more observations than could ever be recorded by professionals themselves. If you'd like more information on Citizen Science or would like to get involved, head over to either of these websites and they will give more in depth explanations as well as numerous opportunities to get involved!
As such, we were tasked with picking a mobile species identification app. I understand I am weak in my identification of plants, so I chose to download and review the mobile application Seek, by iNaturalist.
iNaturalist is a mobile app for both android and apple platforms. iNaturalist was developed through joint efforts between National Geographic and California Academy of Sciences. I'm not reviewing their namesakes' app, but their mobile identification app "Seek".
My Review of Seek
I've had a smart phone for a number of years now, so I've learned most of the ins and outs of basic applications. Seek provides a very user friendly interface. On the app's opening screen, the app uses your phone's GPS to locate you and show you a swipe-able list of nearby species. While I haven't used this feature per se, I think it is a great feature for anyone working to identify common species of anything other than common plants. I'm not sure if there is an algorithm generated to display the most tagged species within "X" proximity of your location or what, but that would make sense. I used Seek to identify and learn grassland plant species and invasive species. To identify a species, you simply click the photo icon and Seek uses your phone's camera to view whatever species you are looking at. I noticed especially with plants that finding a species when it is flowering is helpful, but not always required. From my understanding seek uses other users' verified photos and compares it to the species you are observing to help identify it. The app will go through 'levels of identification' to family, genus, and hopefully to species, but it will use the common names (binomial nomenclature is used as well). (Tip*: If you're unsure of what I mean in the previous sentence, check out my Ecology presentation here, slides 5-8 specifically)
If/when Seek is successful in identifying your species, you have the option to take a photo of it, recording it in a section entitled "My Observations". At this point, you can view information about the species including higher quality photos of your species. You can scroll through and look at the taxonomy of the species (see Tip* above), whether it is native or introduced (and how-so), view a range map and some other data tidbits including similar species. I'm sure Seek has a margin of error and some may be a result of similar species. I have noticed that different lighting situations can make it more difficult to identify a species and/or mis-identify the species.
As far as drawbacks to the app, the only two that exist for me are 1: you must have internet access to be able to identify a species while mobile. If you find yourself in a situation where you don't have access, you can still take several photos of the species in question, and upload them into the app when you get service for identification. I'm not sure if Seek uses GPS coordinates from your geotagged photo however. The other drawback I've found is mine sometimes gets stuck in a loop. There are features on the app called "Species Badges and Challenge Badges" that encourage users to get out and complete a 'challenge' and identify more species to earn the badge. For example, I currently have three levels of badges for simply observing 1, 5, and 20 plants. There are badges for insects, fungi, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fishes, mollusk and arachnids. There are also Challenge Badges that encourage people to find X birds, or X species near a river. Sometimes when I have completed a 'Species Challenge', the app puts me in a loop of going back and forth between the species that earned me the challenge and the Challenge Badge reward itself. This isn't that big of a deal as I can just close the app and open it right back up.
Once I observed enough species it asked me if I wanted to download iNaturalist as I was completing a lot of challenges. I declined. My purpose of using the app was to help identify plants at specific location. In the future, I may download iNaturalist because unlike Seek, iNaturalist documents every occurrence of a species that you observe, essentially expanding databases of species' known ranges. This is where the Citizen Science part comes in. I've included images below that really speaks volumes to what iNaturalist has the capability of providing to science. Keep in mind each of the data points below are daily observations. The graph shows observations plotted against time (in days).
The top photo shows an increase in submissions beginning right around when COVID-19 began. Once temperatures warmed up and people started getting out, observations spiked.
This bottom photo shows observations from the mobile app, by phone over time.
I'm biased, as I am a Wildlife Biologist by trade. I find the app to be highly accurate in it's identification abilities and it's inability to identify a species without enough information. I just attempted to use an old Eastern Box Turtle photo in to identify a reptile, and it said it could identify it to the Genus of Box Turtles, but couldn't go any further. There's a chance it said this too because it wasn't using the geotagged attributes of the photo based on my current location (we only have one species of box turtle in Northern Virginia). I think the app is very easy to use and user friendly. If you're not able to use the app well, it just requires some practice.
If I had to rate Seek, I'd give it a 10/10. I'll likely download iNaturalist in the future, but for now, I'll stick with Seek as that's where my individual need is.
No comments:
Post a Comment