iNaturalist Meta Analysis
An Exploration of Citizen Science
Amateurs and experts around the world participate in citizen science by recording observations of plants and animals with the iNaturalist app. As a quasi-social media platform, we are curious what makes the iNaturalist community distinct. Our objective is to identify behavioral patterns and temporal trends occurring within the iNaturalist community by using data analysis and synthesis techniques.
The project utilized the GBIF DarwinCore Archive dataset, a collection of all Research Grade observations published under a CC0, CC BY or CC BY-NC license.
United States Activity
An analysis of iNaturalist users and observations in the United States from 2014 - 2020, featuring spatial distribution patterns and growth trends.
Growth Around the Globe
A temporal analysis of iNaturalist users from 2014-2020 in the ten countries with the most observations.
Super Users
An analysis of the most devoted U.S. users shows how important this group is to the entire iNaturalist project.