Kate McAlpine from DOC wants lots of weed observations...

Making observations of non-native plants can be very useful, whether they're wild or cultivated (cultivated plants can be the parents of wild plants). Just be sure to mark plants that are clearly cultivated using the "captive/cultivated" option on the iNaturalist app and website.

Here's Kate's request to City Nature Challenge participants:

A plea for lots of weed observations (more is more!)

Kia ora fellow iNaturalist enthusiasts and citizen scientists. Kate McAlpine here, weed ecologist at DOC. I’m currently working with Nigel Charman to develop a smart weed alert tool (SWAT) to improve our ability to detect new weed infestations early. SWAT will be open source and freely available, and you’ll be able to tailor weed alerts to your specific criteria. iNaturalist will be one of the major sources of data that feeds into SWAT.

So – as you’re going about your excellent business making iNaturalist observations in the City Nature Challenge for 2024 this coming weekend (26-29 April), please include weeds on your hit list – even the common things. The more data points we have for weeds (actually - any exotic plants in the wild), the more effective SWAT will be. The city that records the most exotic plant records will win the highly prestigious ‘Weedy Wonderland’ title for 2024. Happy hunting! 😊

Publicerat 24 april 2024 02.40 av jon_sullivan