Site index

Use this index to navigate by practice area and data outcome rather than by section order.

Observation practice

• Intent: why you are observing matters
• Evidence: photos, sounds, and metadata
• Repeatability: temporal and spatial consistency

Reading pathways

• If you want to improve evidence quality: start with Evidence → Data quality → Identification: how it works.
• If you want to reduce bias: start with Observer bias → Spatial clumping → Repeatability.
• If you publish or analyze data: start with Limits → Aggregation → Export and citation.

Identification

• How identification works
• Disagreement and uncertainty
• When not to identify

Data quality and failure modes

• Data quality: Research Grade, bias, and failure modes
• Failure mode: observer bias
• Failure mode: spatial clumping
• Failure mode: popularity effects

Ethics, governance, and open science

• Sensitive species and obscured locations
• Extractive observing and community impact
• Civic and open science: resources and practices

Using data

• Limits: what iNaturalist data can and cannot support
• Aggregation and analysis
• Export and citation

Concepts

• Practitioner model
• Glossary