Diario de carrieseltzer

Thank you to everyone who attended the iNaturalist Mixer during the Ecological Society of America meeting in New Orleans! It was great to meet so many of you (more than 40 people attended!) and I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to everyone.

For fun, I created a little project to see how many observations are made in New Orleans during ESA (and to motivate myself too!). Check out the iNaturalist during ESA2018 project. Presently, @vireolanius is leading followed by @bmtranchina and @cwarneke. I need to upload a few tonight!

Did I get these labels right? Please help me fill in the usernames to faces below!

1 - @jmheberling
2 - @tom_carlson
3 - @johncarlson
4 - @dataecologist
5 - @laurskizi
6 - Daniel Park (username?)
7 - @jzeldin
8 - @enjing @jane518 (Do you have two accounts?)
9 - @kevinlove (???)
10 - @andy71
11 - @ ???
12 - @tkoffel
13 - @ ???
14 - @ajm1993
15 - @mjsaver @matthewsarver (Do you have two accounts?)
16 - @cypseloides
17 - @dlnarango
18 - @accordiongordon
19 - @shrike2
20 - Wade Bishop
21 - @ ???
22 - @elsitakiekebusch
23 - Libby Ellwood
24 - @onjarazafi
25 - @sue_meiman
26 - @acknaturenerd
27 - @parker_hopkins
28 - @vireolanius
29 - @ ???
30 - @carrieseltzer
31 - Julia Drapkin
32 - @ ???
33 - @beccamadsen
34 - @lizardeve
35 - @ ???
36 - @ ???
37 - @krstphr
38 - @kkucera

Not labeled (or maybe not pictured?):
@shakervillageky
Emma Deleon
Hilary Rollins
Hannah Greenberg
Robert Logan

Not pictured:
@haldre
@katekathrynkat

If you're at ESA and still want a sticker, let me know! I have more. I'm going on the crosstown walk field trip on Thursday morning if anyone would like to join.

Thanks again and have fun exploring!

It's fun to see how many different species we saw during this field trip (with a strong emphasis on the wild rather than cultivated).

@johncarlson had his eyes on arthropods and it looks like @partspermillion and I were focused on plants. Looks like @kelseyderose joined that day (welcome!) and @isayhoomhom jumped in too. Awesome!

If you still have photos you haven't shared, you can always still upload them to iNaturalist and as long as the coordinates are correct they'll automatically be added to this project.

If anyone has a photo that would make a nice banner for the project, let me know!

It was awesome to meet many of you last week in New Orleans, between the mixer, crosstown walk field trip, and the Ecological Society of America meeting itself.

Here are links to the presentations I know of that used iNaturalist data or otherwise talked about iNaturalist.

Biodiversity Analysis in Los Angeles (BAILA): A novel approach for studying urban environments, citizen science data, and biodiversity by @enjing

The changing roles of herbaria in an era of global change: A systematic review by @jmheberling

"Snaking" our way through Odonata discovery: Undergraduate citizen science project uncovers potentially new dragonfly species by @swhippss

Crowdsourcing Natural History with iNaturalist by me @carrieseltzer

Thank you to everyone who made observations in New Orleans during the meeting! I'll tag you all here.
@tkoffel @partspermillion @andy71 @sonoranaturalist @johncarlson @cwarneke @edgarallenhoopoe @jmheberling @vireolanius @kelseyderose @miaerick @gauravsk @jane518 @cypseloides @bmtranchina @metrorame @abalonequeen @evsatt @rangerbecky @isayhoomhom @adam179 @richardhall @nataliemhowe @maringal @floridapatty @verdantcg @martmart @balazscsoka @trebor2 @sstearns @ahettinger @kimberlycooke @anniemonty @kkucera @alannafrick @yadixsant @najevb2 @accordiongordon @libnaturalist @whalend

Remember, if you have more photos, you can still upload them and they'll automatically be included in this project for observations made during ESA 2018.

And lastly, check out this link to see if you can help identify anything observed during ESA in New Orleans! Here's a short video about how it works.

How to use iNaturalists's Identify Page from iNaturalist on Vimeo.

In April this year, 64 cities across the globe used iNaturalist to compete in the 3rd annual City Nature Challenge. As a result, more than 425,000 observations were made in those places alone in a four-day period.

In 2019, the City Nature Challenge will take place April 26-29. Do you want to be involved? If so, please join a call for onboarding new organizers happening at several different times on Monday, August 27 (call 1, call 2, call 3). Please add your name to this document and note the time and call in information.
Updated: please see the comment below for more info on how to become an organizer.

This is a great opportunity for organizations and motivated individuals to build community and iNaturalist activity in your area, and there are plenty of experienced organizers to learn from during the planning process.

The map below shows cities that participated last year (green) along with the largest city in each country (yellow cities >0.5M population, grey cities <0.5M population). There are plenty of large cities outside of North America that could join! (We didn't add all of the cities where someone has expressed interest for 2019, but you can see here who's already planning to join the August 27/28 calls.

The iNaturalist staff want to acknowledge our gratitude for the massive international organizing effort led by @kestrel (California Academy of Sciences), @lhiggins & @amyjaeckerjones (both at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County). We just try to provide the infrastructure to enable friendly biodiversity competition!