IDENTIFICATION TIME

Thank you everyone for all the great observations.

We now have a week to make identifications, so if you can please help with those.

Identifications are best made in a series of stages. Please choose your level and help us.

• If you dont know any particular group really well, then please start at Stage 1 (Basic), and then Stage 2 (IDs).
• If you know a particular group (e.g. birds, or Ericas) well, then please start at Stage 2 (IDs).
• If you are a specialist, then please start at Stage 3 (Review), and then move to Stage 2 (IDs).

It is best if you use the ID curation tool. To see how this works, please look at this 2 minute tutorial.
https://vimeo.com/246153496
(basically you click on a card to start the tool, and then ID what you can on a "page", mark what you cannot do as "reviewed"and then go to the next page).

If you still have observations to upload, please do those first. Clear your upload backlog before starting on identifications:

* Stage 1. Basic

These are observations that do not have an ID and need an ID. It includes almost meaningless IDs such as "Birds" and "Plants" - the issue is not a problem for birds (our experienced identifiers can cope with this, but for plants, we need to narrow it down to family for the specialists to kick in).
Anyone can help here, and this is really appreciated. Please ID as finely as possible. It is almost pointless to ID "Plants" - please try to get to family level. And for insects it helps to get to the Order level (e.g Beetles, Bees, Flies, Grasshoppers, Dragonflies, etc.) Rather dont ID these if you cannot take it to these levels. Just skip them and leave it for others.

So please use this link.
Cut 1 - nothing: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown&project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2020-cape-town&place_id=any Thurs 11am: now largely done: please proceed to Cut2 or Stage 2
Cut 2 - effectively unknown: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=research%2Cneeds_id%2Ccasual&project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2020-cape-town&lrank=epifamily&place_id=any

* Stage 2: Tackling Family and genus level IDs.

This is the intermediate stage. Anyone can help here too. Specialists and those who know a particular group well should work here.

Click this link:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Ccasual&project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2020-cape-town&place_id=any&page=1
In the "species" box type your group (e.g. Ericaceae or Coleoptera - you can use common names, but if you dont know the formal names, then you are probably getting ahead of yourself). click on the option and then get identifying.

* Stage 3: Review

This is the final and double-checking phase. Dont worry: the ID curation tool will clear what you have reviewed, so that you will only have to review new data, not what you have already done. So data you checked in Stage 2 will not reappear here, nor will observations checked previously (unless someone has queried the ID).

Click this link:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?quality_grade=needs_id%2Ccasual%2Cresearch&project_id=great-southern-bioblitz-2020-cape-town&place_id=any
In the "species" box type your group - click on the option and then get reviewing.

If the ID is correct, then please "Agree" to it. Click the Agree button alongside the ID. The number of agreements is a measure of the certainty of the ID, so please dont just skip the IDs.

It is as simple as that. Please help.

In anticipation: thanks a million! Our identifiers are as important as our observers. Your help is invaluable.

BUT:

• FAVES!!!
  If you see a particularly good photograph, an unusual, outstanding or special observation or just one that you like, please "FAVE" it - we will use these to choose our top observations for the Bioblitz. You can do as many as you like: be generous. It is on the bottom of the left panel in the ID tool.

• Data Quality!!!
  Please note that these data are used! So please if there are any real issues, please mark the observations appropriately.

• mark planted as planted
• use the "Data Quality" tab to mark data with suspect localities or any real issues.

These help data users work out which data are most useful to their needs
For instance, all your data here will be used by SANParks in their Climate Amelioration study, which seeks to try and figure out which species on the Cape Peninsula will be most impacted by climate change and therefor might need rescue plans. These data will be downloaded next week - so this is imminent research!! Thank you for helping out in this study and others like it!

Posted on 29 de setembro de 2020, 07:25 AM by tonyrebelo