History of iNaturalist

iNaturalist has become a prominent aspect of the Brandies Community, bringing people together not only from within the campus but also from the surrounding area and even throughout the world. As this journal post is currently being written, nearly 1,200 users have contributed to the Brandeis University Biodiversity Project, with almost 50,000 total observations of 2,652 unique species. These observations have been engaged by 3,595 users, many of which are not direct members of Brandeis. But how did iNaturalist become prominent to the Brandies Community? In this journal post we will explore the history of iNaturalist on campus.

2016 was the first year that iNaturalist was being used by the greater Brandeis community with its incorporation into courses on campus. In its first official year in use, a total of 820 observations were made encompassing 209 total species. The American Robin was the most observed species during 2016, and to this day has remained as one of the most frequent observations. The River Birch was the third most observed species during this year, but since then has had a large decline in the number of observations made. Other common observations were the Eastern White Pine, Canada Goose, Eastern Gray Squirrel, and Eastern Cottontail. Similar to the American Robin, these have all remained as the top observed species.

Before exploring further, it is worth highlighting the observations before iNaturalist officially made its way into the community. Several observations can be found of various plants and birds in the surrounding area of Brandeis, particularly from The Island. These observations even go as far back as the early days of iNaturalist’s inception, but have been added in more recent years. The first observation made in real time and posted on campus traces all the way back to December of 2012, in which a Red-tailed Hawk was apparently observed. Unfortunately, there was no actual photo to coincide with the observation, which reflects an experience that many first-time iNaturalist users make even to this day.

2017 was an important year for iNaturalist on Brandeis. Nearly 600 users were now using the app, which was almost three times as many from the first year. Collectively, more than 3,000 observations were made in this year of 360 species. Although impressive, these numbers do not make 2017 an important year. This can be attributed to Gerald, who is an Eastern Muskrat that has amassed to become the most popular observation on the whole iNaturalist platform (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5890862).

Since then, iNaturalist has continued to grow in popularity in the Brandies Community, except for the decline in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some notable years at Brandeis were 2018 and 2022. 2018 resulted in 987 unique species being observed, which was by far the largest jump made from any year. 2022 was the only year that more than 10,000 observations were made, with 10,890 observations. Currently, we are only finishing up the third month of the year and already have more than 3,000 observations made, so maybe the observation record can be broken.

It is very interesting to see how something that started off as an unknown identification of a Red-tailed Hawk can spawn the likes of Gerald and a mass community project that connects us all.

Posted on 24 de março de 2024, 07:10 PM by nmoniz4