Data from species identification applications may be used to fill in gaps in our understanding of the global distribution of plant features. Based on information from the well-known iNaturalist app, researchers from Leipzig University, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), and other organizations were able to prove this. When iNaturalist input is combined with information on plant attributes, the resulting maps are significantly more accurate than those produced by earlier methods that relied on extrapolation from small databases. The updated maps, among other things, offer a better foundation for comprehending plant-environment interactions and for Earth system modeling. The research was published in the magazine Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Climate and nature are interdependent. Climate is very necessary for plant growth, but plants, like those in a forest, which evaporate a lot of water, have a big impact on the climate as well. A thorough understanding of the features of the vegetation at the various sites, such as leaf surface size, tissue quality, and plant height, is required in order to be able to make precise predictions about how the living world may grow. However, professional scientists typically have to record such data manually, which is a tedious and time-consuming operation. As a result, the data on plant traits that are now available globally is quite limited and only covers a few places.
iDiv and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena maintain the TRY database, which now has information on plant features for almost 280,000 plant species. This makes it one of the world’s most complete databases for mapping plant traits. Until now, extrapolations (estimations outside the original observation range) from this geographically constrained database have been used to produce global maps of plant attributes. The generated maps, however, are not very trustworthy.
The Leipzig researchers have now used a different strategy to close significant data gaps. They have integrated the extensive dataset from the citizen science initiative iNaturalist with the existing trait data from the TRY database rather than expanding it geographically.
Users of the iNaturalist app can share their observations of the natural world by naming species, uploading images, and indicating their geographic location. This has led to the global collection of more than 19 million data points for terrestrial plants only. The information is also used to feed the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the largest biodiversity database in the world (GBIF). This is open to the public and also serves as an important research database for biodiversity.
The world’s largest repository of plant community data, the iDiv sPlot platform, was used to compare the maps created using the combination of iNaturalist observations and TRY plant traits to plant trait evaluations based on sPlotOpen. It has around two million records with comprehensive lists of the plant species that can be found on the sites (plots) where expert researchers have conducted studies. Plant trait information from the TRY database is also added to the database to improve it.
Compared to earlier map outputs based on extrapolation, the new iNaturalist-based map substantially more closely matched the sPlot data map. According to first author Sophie Wolf, a PhD researcher at Leipzig University, “It was both surprising and impressive that the new maps, based on the citizen science data, looked to be even more precise than the extrapolations.” In particular, since the structural differences between iNaturalist app and our reference sPlotOpen
According to the study’s final author, Dr. Teja Kattenborn of Leipzig University and iDiv, “Our study strongly indicates the potential for research into voluntary data.” It’s encouraging that the data from thousands of regular people and professional scientists can be used together.
According to co-author Prof. Miguel Mahecha, head of the working group Modelling Approaches in Remote Sensing at Leipzig University and iDiv, “This work is the result of an initiative of the National Research Data Infrastructure for Biodiversity Research (NFDI4Biodiversity), with which we are pushing for a change in culture towards the open provision of data.” “A deeper understanding of our planet is absolutely dependent on data being freely available.”
