“How many plants do we walk past, how many insects do we observe, and not think anything of them?” People’s curiosity and desire to learn about nature by identifying what is living in our backyard or local area is something people naturally do. Our senses alert us to new or different sightings or things we hear. Our natural curiosity is to find out what it is, it’s part of our innate sense of survival. Thousands of people are now using iNaturalist in Australia, and across the world to help them identify plants and animals they come across at home or on local travels. It’s as simple as taking a picture on your phone and uploading to the platform to get help in the subject’s identification.
Can we use iNaturalist to protect our Australian biodiversity?
According to iNaturalist the answer is “Yes”.
Invasive insects, a distinct subgroup of biological invasions, represent a global multibillion-dollar problem. Invasive pests can severely damage forestry, lead to shifts in biogeochemical cycles, changes in plant community composition and local species extinctions. Once established, many invasive species are impossible to eradicate. Taking years, if not decades to become managed successfully as in the case of invasive Fire Ants. In some extreme cases, invasive species prove to be essentially unmanageable, such as cane toads and rabbits. Thus, early detection and rapid response to new invasives is vital to maintain the integrity of both local ecosystems and economies.
There have been several incidences in the USA and more recently in the UK & Australia where curious observers have snapped a photo and uploaded it onto iNaturalist sparking biosecurity alerts on a massive scale.
Recently Felipe Moretto, a Bushcare officer from New South Wales was visiting Tasmania and took a photo of a Peron’s Tree frog in a Port Arthur lavender field and uploaded the image to iNaturalist. Ordinarily a frog in a field wouldn’t raise any biosecurity security alerts, but on this occasion it did because the frog was not endemic to Port Arthur. Whilst it was a native frog, it was alarming because the frog could easily establish itself and outcompete local frogs.
So, finding a tiny frog in a lavender field was almost an impossible task as it could easily hide in the dense foliage. Luckily the Biosecurity Officer was able to contact the lavender farm owner’s. She recognised the type of eucalyptus tree the frog was photographed sitting on and narrowed the search area to ‘one or two’ locations on the property. Within 10 minutes of searching the property owner and her teenage daughter had located the frog. The teen credited her shorter height for finding the frog so quickly! In less than one week after it’s happy snap had been uploaded onto iNaturalist, the frog had been removed, and a biosecurity crisis had been averted.
In July 2024, Guiliana Sinclair, a Community Science Officer at London’s Natural History Museum, was heading home on a London bus when she found a tiny lacy insect on her bag as she sat down. She was about to release it out the window but when her curiosity about it prompted her to take a photo. She uploaded it onto iNaturalist and continued home. She never thought that her blurry picture would spark a biosecurity alert.
By Luise Manning, Springfield Lakes Nature Care Inc.
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