UPLOADING (APP)ALACHIA: iNATURALIST COM ES TO T H E MOUNTAI N S BY AARON SEARCY
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UPLOADING (APP)ALACHIA: iNATURALIST COM ES TO T H E MOUNTAI N S BY AARON SEARCY
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Discover Life in America intern Brittney Georgic uses iNaturalist in the field while hunting lichens. Photo courtesy of DLiA
With the help of the iNaturalist app, smartphone users in the Smokies and beyond are discovering new species, rediscovering species thought to be extinct, and contributing vast amounts of data to researchers to help protect rare and vulnerable forms of life. Discover Life in America, the coordinating organization for the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, is now harnessing that data through a project called Species SnapIt and MapIt. All they need is more people like you to download the app and start sharing pictures of what you see in the Great Smoky Mountains.
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he morning sun is starting to stream through the trees surrounding Twin Creeks Science and Education Center just above Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Will Kuhn, the Director of Science and Research for Discover Life in America (DLiA), stops to bend over a bright green lump inching along toward the edge of the road. DLiA’s Executive Director, Todd Witcher, is a few steps ahead. “Uh oh, it’s not a dragonfly is it?” “No, not this time,” says Kuhn. “Looks like a caterpillar.” Kuhn pulls out his phone and snaps a picture or two of the creature before we resume our walk through a scattering of buildings on what was once a quiet mountain retreat built here by Louis Voorheis before the land became part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). The repurposed cabin directly behind us is now the humble headquarters for DLiA, the organization tasked by the National Park Service since 1998 with the goal of managing the documentation of every single living species in the Smokies through the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI). The project involves more than 100 universities,
represents the largest study of its kind in the US and aims to create the most comprehensive catalog of regional biodiversity in the world. Kuhn steps off the road onto a small trail that runs to the backdoor of the science center before he picks up where we left off—explaining how smartphones are proving to be one of the most powerful tools available in the global effort to study and protect biological diversity.
SCIENCE GOES POCKETSIZE “There are 11 million sets of eyes or more every year in the park,” says Kuhn. “We’re just trying to get a fraction of those people to submit observations of the species that they see and particularly to target the certain groups of species for which we’re most interested in getting data.” Kuhn is referring to the way the iNaturalist app works: users upload a photo of an unknown plant or bug or animal, and—with the help of artificial intelligence, computer vision technology and recent exponential improvements in algorithm training—the app helps users identify most
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any living thing on earth. These identifications are shared as observations and verified by other users until they reach “research grade,” at which point they can be collected and used by scientists any number of ways. “You couldn’t hire that many people to help you collect that data!” Witcher chimes in from a few steps ahead. After considering the possibilities the app creates for their work documenting biodiversity in the Smokies, Kuhn and Witcher began actively encouraging the collection of iNaturalist data in the Smokies in 2018 by launching their own project called Species SnapIt and MapIt. A field guide accessible within the app directs users to DLiA’s regularly updated list of the highest priority observations for researchers and GSMNP staff. As Kuhn or Witcher might tell you, the Smokies are a particularly good place to take a biological inventory because they constitute what is known as a biodiversity
The Smokies are a particularly good place to take a biological inventory because they constitute what is known as a biodiversity hotspot—a place that, by draw of geology and climate, has given rise to an exceptional number of lifeforms from lichens and mosses to salamanders and fireflies. Infographic by Lisa Horstman
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hotspot—a place that, by draw of geology and climate, has given rise to an exceptional number of lifeforms from lichens and mosses to salamanders and fireflies. In fact, the Smokies stand out even when compared to other mountains, which as a category are home to about 85 percent of the world’s amphibians, birds and mammals. Beyond the Smokies’ cloud-forest climate—which provides the perfect home for its wealth of glassy skinned salamanders—the mountains are exceptional for a few reasons according to Paul Super, the NPS science coordinator in the Great Smoky Mountains. “The biodiversity here comes from a combination of high moisture from rain and clouds and high solar radiation, which is highly productive for plants,” said Super. “This area also escaped glaciation during the last ice age, and we believe there were refuges for many species in the deep valleys of these mountains. Our unique diversity is owed to climate, geology, topography, and geologic history.” The ATBI recently reached a major landmark of 20,200 documented species in the Smokies, but researchers believe there are at least 40,000 to 60,000 species still undiscovered in the park. A citizen-science app like iNaturalist might prove particularly helpful if the park’s free entry and recordsetting visitation can be leveraged into an additional resource for conservation through data collection. As Kuhn and Witcher explain, observations made in GSMNP through iNaturalist can be used to do habitat distribution modeling through an NPS application called Species Mapper. “The park is a really big place, and it’s hard to actually inventory large swathes of it, especially for small and obscure things,” says Kuhn. “Species Mapper is a way of taking what information we have and extrapolating out to a larger regions, which helps park staff aim their limited conservation resources to specific areas.” In fact, the invasive species removal team in the Smokies has already made a routine of monitoring the iNaturalist feed in hopes the app can serve as an early warning alert for fastmoving invasive vegetation. “We can overlay a bunch of maps on top of each other and find really great hotspots in the park or areas that have a high prevalence of sensitive species,” says Witcher. This information can also inform decisions about placing park infrastructure like parking lots and bathrooms so they avoid harming particularly fragile habitats. “The more data you have for Species Mapper, the more accurate the map gets,” says Witcher. If just one in ten park visitors used the app to document what they saw in the Smokies, it would mean more than a million extra citizen scientists in
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iNATURALIST: A CRASH COURSE You can support critical conservation efforts in the park just by keeping your camera handy during a hike. Here’s how:
1. Download the iNaturalist app on your smart device from the App Store or Google Play. 2. In the app, go to Menu > Guides and search “snapit.” The guide lists species of importance at the moment, with photos and descriptions (like a digital field guide). Any observation is useful, but the guide will give you an idea of which species are of high priority. 3. Take a hike in the park! Observations from North Carolina and away
from visitor centers and heavily trafficked areas are especially valuable. When possible, take multiple photos of the specimen from different angles.
4. In the app, go to Menu > New observation and upload your photo(s).
Tapping “What did I see?” will allow the app to try and identify the specimen (data connection required). Don’t worry if you’re not certain it’s correct—other users can chime in to verify. Make sure location services are enabled, and under “Project,” search for “atbi.”
Visit dlia.org/snapit-mapit for more tips and information.
the park every year contributing invaluable information for species modeling and conservation efforts. For Kuhn and Witcher at DLiA, the time and energy spent promoting the app is well worth the investment.
MAKING DATA WORK IN THE WILD Introducing the iNaturalist model of research hasn’t come without its own challenges, however, and there may be more complications than previously thought when it comes to granting the natural world a social media presence. Without at least some protections, some rare and valuable species have already proven vulnerable to opportunists using similar wildlife-tracking apps for poaching. As a result, iNaturalist has been forced to hide observations of endangered species within the app. Data manager Kendra Straub worked closely with DLiA’s Kuhn and Witcher along with Simon Kingston, an iNaturalist curator with the NPS, to set up the Smokies bioinventory project. “Before we really figured out how to use iNaturalist data, the first thing I thought about as the data manager was how I could align this huge amazing resource with our protection ethic and make sure we’re not releasing sensitive data,” says Straub. “A lot of our list was already taken care of because iNaturalist does automatically obscure federally and state-listed species, but we really protect on a higher level than that. We worked with Simon to make sure iNaturalist hides everything that is truly sensitive within our boundary.” Wild ginseng,
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To the untrained eye, the pleasing fungus beetle (top) can appear identical to the red-banded fungus beetle (above). iNaturalist’s AI-powered identification isn’t perfect, and even “research-grade” observations must be vetted carefully. Photos by Katja Schulz
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SMOKIES MOST WANTED (OBSERVATIONS)
If just one in ten park visitors used the app to document what they saw in the Smokies, it would mean more than a million extra citizen scientists in the park every year contributing invaluable information for species modeling and conservation efforts.
The current most-wanted list for species observations in the park includes the invasive Asiatic dayflower; the extraterrestrial-looking spun glass slug moth; cutleaf coneflower; and the nine-banded armadillo, an elusive newcomer reported in multiple corners of the park that may be here as a result of climate changeinduced migration. Clockwise from top left: the spun glass slug moth, cutleaf coneflower, invasive Asiatic dayflower, and new arrival nine-banded armadillo. Photos by John Friel, Melissa McMasters (coneflower and armadillo), and Judy Gallagher
which can be sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars per pound in some instances, is one particularly poachable species that has been obscured within the app. Straub and other researchers in the Smokies also carefully scrutinized the quality of iNaturalist’s crowdsourced data. After conducting a pilot study on observations collected during the Smokies’ annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage, Straub and her team concluded that even the “research-grade” observations within iNaturalist often require additional verification before they can be reliably used for science.
“We really thought intentionally about this,” says Straub. “We took ten percent of the researchgrade observations and looked at them by hand, but we were only able to agree on 70 percent of those identifications.” To speed this necessary additional vetting process, Straub developed her own application that allows experts to double check observations of priority-listed species before adding them to the park’s data management system. Others across the US park service community have since reached out to Straub to put her system to use beyond the Smokies. Yet even with improvements in vetting and computer vision algorithms, iPhones are unlikely to replace qualitative studies in the natural world. Entomologist Becky Nichols has been working in the Smokies since 1997, and one of her primary responsibilities has been coordinating research with DLiA. “We get more than a hundred research permits every year, and we continue to conduct our own inventory and monitoring,” says Nichols. “There are already plenty of scientists out there, but I see iNaturalist as a supplement to the other research that’s already going on here.” Nevertheless, Nichols believes there is value in iNaturalist beyond the realm of the strictly scientific: “I see this as a public engagement opportunity—visitors become more aware of the diversity of life. They might initially think there’s just a few species of plants around as you’re walking down the trail, but you start looking a little closer and realize it’s very, very diverse. It creates a deeper understanding, and people are more likely to be good stewards and think more about conservation as they learn about biodiversity.”
LOOKING FORWARD, WITH APPS More than simply a high-tech iteration of the traditional field guide, the interactive features of an app have profound implications for outdoor education and teaching environmental literacy. National parks are increasingly
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A student photographs a redring milkweed plant. Educators throughout the Southeast have incorporated iNaturalist into lesson plans and field trips in order to engage with students’ proclivity for using technology. Photo by Valerie Polk
incorporating elements of social media and apps to augment the ongoing research within their bounds and accomplish another core mandate of the NPS—public education. “I’m a big champion of the balance between technology and nature, and I try to tell that to the kids too,” says Natrieifia Miller, a seasonal educational ranger in GSMNP. “If I’m out with a group of seventh graders, and they get their phones out to take selfies or something, I’ll bring up iNaturalist instead of just chastising them.” Last summer Miller led a group of high school students participating in a weeklong, science- and adventure-based trip through the Smokies and Western North Carolina. Along the way, students studied biodiversity, did nature journaling, and contributed observations of what they saw to the SnapIt and MapIt project. “I think it does garner interest from more young people, even if that initially stems from the fact that they’re allowed to have their phones out,” says Miller. “Feeling like they’re trusted to be able to do something and explore on their own holds a lot of weight with students of every age and fosters freedom and creativity.” DLiA is currently working with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) beyond the boundaries of the park to distribute classroom kits, resources and assistance to regional schools and encourage “bioblitzes” to document biodiversity in schoolyards. The iScience program is open to schools in all counties of Tennessee along with parts of Western North
Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The iNaturalist website also provides teaching materials, lesson plans and ideas for using the app as a learning tool. The growing interest in citizen science and techintegrated outdoor education comes at a time when “an overwhelming majority of parks are already at the extreme warm end of their historical conditions,” according to a recent nationwide NPS survey. National parks, many of which are already in unique climates or along shifting coastlines, are set to experience disproportionately drastic temperature rises and rainfall decreases in coming years when compared to other areas in the US. This means that places like the Smokies, and the diversity of life that takes refuge within them, are on the front lines of climate change. “If we don’t know what’s here, we won’t know how to protect it,” says Witcher. DLiA is hoping projects like theirs in coordination with iNaturalist may help attract public awareness of the importance of biodiversity and record an ecological baseline before it’s too late. “What we’re trying to get across is this: the world is full of lots of things,” says Kuhn. “There’s more to know. The park is an incredibly diverse place, and it should be cherished for that.” As the words fall, an orange and black butterfly, a Viceroy, floats across the path between us and into the woods. Kuhn’s eyes follow it until it’s lost in a tangle of thick understory. v
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