Are you ready to iNat?

On the weekend of April 30th-May 3rd 2021, if you are out and about - in your garden or yard, on a walk, or walking your pet, chatting with a neighbor or hanging outside in the playground in Acton or Boxborough - and you happen to see an interesting plant, or animal, a bug, bee or a bird - or any local biodiversity, you can earn the title of a Citizen Scientist! This weekend is when Acton-Boxborough participates in a public collaboration effort in contributing to scientific research through crowdsourcing. And for crowdsourcing, more the merrier! “I followed the steps [during the kickoff meeting for the project] and in just a couple of minutes I am all set to start observing biodiversity, and uploading the pictures to the site”, says Liliana Rao, a recent member of the AB BioBlitz initiative. The steps include downloading the iNaturalist app (iPhone or Android), creating an account and under “More” in the menu, click “Projects'' and search “Acton Boxborough” to find and join the Acton Boxborough BioBlitz 2021. While organized at the local level, the AB BioBlitz is a part of the larger Boston BioBlitz.

Couple of months ago, quite by accident, I was introduced to the interesting, though a rather well-established concept called BioBlitz. While this term has been around for decades, (first introduced in 1996 by the U.S. National Park service naturalist Susan Rudy ), it was a new concept for me as I haven’t been part of a naturalist community. A naturalist is a type of biologist who studies living species and their impact on each other and their environments. At best I could call myself a nature lover. Besides its tranquility and calmness, I found nature intriguing and interesting. I was curious, but in no way a biologist or a life-scientist. My connection with nature developed due to walking my dog in the Acton trails, and then the long nature walks due to the pandemic isolation. During my walks in the woods, I have been capturing all interesting biodiversity with my iPhone, and writing about them in my blogs.

When I learned that a BioBlitz is a communal citizen-science effort to record as many species within a designated location and time period as possible, I was curious to know more. Citizen science is the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge. Through citizen science, people share and contribute to data monitoring and collection programs. Well, I had already been clicking plants, animals, bugs, fungi. I was also using AI based apps to research my finds. Now, where crowdsourcing meets biodiversity, I would be uploading these same pictures of observed biodiversity to a central platform. I was ready to be a citizen scientist!

The beauty of modern technology is that when an observation is uploaded via a photo or a recorded sound, the app provides AI-based suggestions which are visually similar or found nearby. A novice like me was able to find a closest match and upload. The observation gets uploaded as a “Casual Grade”, requiring identification by an expert. That’s when crowdsourcing kicks in, and experts somewhere on the network can identify or correct the observation, and reach a consensus on marking it “research grade”. Technology has made the whole process seamless and easy as snapping fingers for the citizen scientist collaborator. There is enough scientific detail for every identified observation. Now observing biodiversity via the iNaturalist app even has a name. It is called “to iNat” (verb), or “iNatting”.

What started off as the National Geographic Society’s ambitious the Great Nature Project has given rise to a sophisticated, technically advanced iNaturalist app, which was created for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. iNaturalist was funded by the National Geographic Society, the California Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation. In May 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, iNaturalist reached 1 million observers. As the observers around the world increase, Matt Liebman, who initiated the AB BioBlitz, calls out to the citizen scientists and nature lovers to “Think Globally, iNat locally” and contribute to the ever-growing and thriving community of crowdsourced scientific research. AB BioBlitz 2021 is sponsored by Green Acton, with Karen Watkins and Mike Boss leading the effort from the Green Acton side, with a goal to celebrate biodiversity in the Acton and Boxborough area, and increase resident awareness beyond the bioblitz. It is co-sponsored by Acton Conservation Trust, AB PIP STEM, Acton WildAware, and Boxborough Conservation Trust. 

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 30, 2021 at 12:15 PM

    Hi Gauri! I’m so glad you are enthusiastic about the AB BioBlitz. Actually the history of the event would be incomplete without acknowledging the efforts of Massachusetts naturalists E. O. Wilson, emeritus of Harvard University, and Peter Alden of Concord. Both of them have written excellent books making nature more accessible to ordinary people. Here’s what Wikipedia says about them in the “BioBlitz” entry:

    In 1998, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson and Massachusetts wildlife expert Peter Alden developed a program to catalog the organisms around Walden Pond. This led to a statewide program known as Biodiversity Days. This concept is very similar to a BioBlitz and occasionally the two terms are used interchangeably.[4]

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    Replies
    1. Gauri's Thoughts in the WoodsMay 1, 2021 at 10:09 AM

      Thanks for bringing out this very important point. Coming from Massachusetts, and being from the area, this detail is even more relevant. I linked this, and other info under the "Susan Rudy" hyperlink - which leads to Wikipedia info with more history.

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