A global tour of iNaturalist mammal data: status, trends, and outlook for macroecology and conservation

Le résumé fourni par la source

Abstract iNaturalist data are growing rapidly, and researchers are increasingly interested in their utility for ecology and conservation. Yet because iNaturalist data are collected opportunistically, they have taxonomic and geographic unevenness that researchers should be aware of. Here, we describe the taxonomic, geographic, and temporal patterns in the global iNaturalist mammal data; evaluate whether residents or visitors contribute more observations; and illustrate the potential utility and pitfalls for IUCN Endangered or Data-Deficient mammals. As of early 2025, there were 5.29 million observations of mammals on iNaturalist, with >10 K observations from most orders. Larger species were more likely to be observed across the globe, but effects from other species traits on observations varied across countries. Observations of smaller species also tended to be identified by the community less frequently, highlighting a need for additional engagement by taxonomic experts. Geographically, over 20% of the data are from within North America, but observation rates are growing in all countries. Some of this growth is likely driven by tourism, as we estimated that visitors contribute the majority of observations for 63% of countries. iNaturalist data now vastly outnumber museum records for Data-Deficient species and could improve knowledge about species distributions. We pass along several lessons we learned from working with this dataset, including best practices for quality control related to the taxonomic and positional uncertainty of observations. We also highlight 3 key ways in which the utility of iNaturalist can continue to grow for mammals: (i) more observations, particularly for small species and in places with few observations; (ii) more identifications of existing observations by local and non-local experts; and (iii) development of robust methods to estimate (relative) abundance, which could be used for trend analyses. Ultimately, we hope to inspire additional engagement with iNaturalist, both on the platform and within the research community.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.