iNaturalist Data and Projects
Hi, there!
I've been an active member of the iNaturalist community for only a few months now, and have been impressed with how helpful and courteous the general members are. It's been an excellent way for me to gain a deeper knowledge of the natural world, particularly the lichen and more niche indicator species I study.
From developing local spaces to building increasingly robust data gathering projects, there is no shortage of use cases for the observations here. Personally, I am looking to work closely with the Kentucky Clover project being managed by the Kentucky Native Plant Society and Tara Littlefield. I am also looking to build out my B5: Birds, Bats, Bees, Beetles, and Butterflies conservation project in Fayette County.
This isn't all, however. Some of my leading projects on iNaturalist are my Extirpated species of Kentucky, sourced from the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission report, and my Kentucky Native Flora and Fauna group, sourced from the 2023 State Wildlife Action Plan revision Species of Greatest Conservation Need and Wild Ones Kentucky research. My invasive species project is sourced partially from the Kentucky Invasive Plant Council, while my Cat Colonies of Kentucky project helps TNR groups to pinpoint feral colony locations. This proactive citizen science and the accumulated dataset is enormously useful.
I hope to continue to learn more and add to this site, and pull in other groups and researchers who can do the same. I am still learning how to ID many genera of plants and insects, but am happy to help ID as many other genera as I can. I am sure we will continue to help each other out, and I look forward to speaking with more local experts and citizen scientists.
See you all out in the field!
