Formulaic Unpublished Names: The need for a TDWG standard and for the inclusion of such names in apps such as iNaturalist

Names are essential for communication. In biodiversity we have a nomenclature system that has stood the test of time (around 270 years) and, despite some shortcomings, it works. However, the world has changed. Extinction rates have increased rapidly in recent times and are rising at ever increasing rates due to climate change and human neglect. As a result, we need to do everything we can to protect the species that remain and, to do that, we need to be able to communicate about those species. The publishing process is slow, and there is a dearth of taxonomists, so the formal publication for many of these species, especially in the tropics and the New World, cannot keep up with the ever-increasing known unpublished species. It is estimated (Chapman 2009) that only about 16% of the world’s species have been described. In plants that figure is around 65% described, with 35% still undescribed. Many of these are known, and many are threatened, but unless we give them names, we cannot adequately communicate about them, exchange data on them, or add them into conservation legislation. This includes being able to identify photos, etc. in citizen science apps such as iNaturalist, which can be important in determining ranges, identifying new taxa, and for taxonomists and other researchers.In the 1980s, Australia developed a formulaic naming system for undescribed plant species (Chapman 2005). The formulaic name follows the format: \" sp. ()\" e.g., \"Prostanthera sp. Somersbey (B.J.Conn 4024)\". This was universally adopted in Australia in the 1990s, and allowed, from 1999, the inclusion of these undescribed taxa in the legislated National and State threatened species lists. As of May 2022, there were 41 such taxa listed in the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). Such formulaic names can be synonymised as new names are formally described. A more detailed discussion of the formulaic method was given on pages 20-21 in Chapman (2005).Some have said that this is a trivial issue, but it is not trivial, and we will give evidence of this by looking at just one small part of the world – Western Australia – where there are currently 987 currently accepted undescribed taxa out of an estimated flora of about 13,000 that use this formulaic naming system (https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/). That is around 7.5% of all plant species in the state. Of these 987 taxa, over 50% are listed as Conservation Priority taxa (calculated from the florabase reference).This is not just an Australian problem, or just a plant problem, and thus we need such a system formalised into a TDWG standard. This would allow for consistency across the globe and across life kingdoms and allow for the transfer of data through data aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). We also need citizen science apps such as iNaturalist to allow for the inclusion of such names in their taxonomies, otherwise we lose a lot of important information on some of the most valuable and threatened taxa in the world.While looking at the benefits, we must also look at some of the drawbacks e.g., physical piracy of rare taxa, and taxonomic piracy. It has been suggested that in some taxonomic groups, tying a formula name to a voucher, and especially where there is a link to a photo on iNaturalist, could encourage taxon pirates to describe and publish the taxa as new taxa in self-published journals without having examined any material. These issues need to be discussed, but we believe they are not reasons to deny support of the concept of formulaic names, even if different formats are needed for different taxonomic groups

iNaturalist data for: Multi-taxon biodiversity responses to the 2019–2020 Australian megafires

Conditions conducive to fires are becoming increasingly common and widespread under climate change. Recent fire events across the globe have occurred over unprecedented scales, affecting a diverse array of species and habitats. Understanding biodiversity responses to such fires is critical for conservation. Quantifying post-fire recovery is problematic across taxa, from insects to plants to vertebrates, especially at large geographic scales. Novel datasets can address this challenge. We use presence-only citizen science data from iNaturalist, collected before and after the 2019-2020 megafires in burnt and unburnt regions of eastern Australia, to quantify the effect of post-fire diversity responses, up to 18 months post-fire. The geographic, temporal, and taxonomic sampling of this dataset was large, but sampling effort and species discoverability were unevenly spread. We used rarefaction and prediction (iNEXT) with which we controlled sampling completeness among treatments, to estimate diversity indices (Hill numbers: q=0-2) among nine broad taxon groupings and seven habitats, including 3885 species. We estimated an increase in species diversity up to 18 months after the 2019–2020 Australian megafires in regions which were burnt, compared to before the fires in burnt and unburnt regions. Diversity estimates in dry sclerophyll forest matched and likely drove this overall increase post-fire, while no taxon groupings showed clear increases inconsistent with both control treatments post-fire. Compared to unburnt regions, overall diversity across all taxon groupings and habitats greatly decreased in areas exposed to extreme fire severity. Post-fire life histories are complex and species detectability is an important consideration in all post-fire sampling. We demonstrate how fire characteristics, distinct taxa, and habitat influence biodiversity, as seen in local-scale datasets. Further integration of large-scale datasets with small-scale studies will lead to a more robust understanding of fire recovery.Funding provided by: Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Australian GovernmentCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100015471Award Number: GA-2000885Funding provided by: Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Australian GovernmentCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100015471Award Number: GA-2000224This dataset represents all publicly available, unobscured iNaturalist records used in final analyses for the article "Multi-taxon biodiversity responses to the 2019-2020 Australian megafires". Only the iNaturalist observations IDs are reported here, to avoid potential copyright infringement. To replicate the dataset used in the paper (without the obscured observations (see methods and appendices for details), use the inat_id column to link to a download of records from iNaturalist. Details on how these data were collected and processed can be found in the "Methods" section and appendices to the article

The benefits of contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an identifier.

As the number of observations submitted to the citizen science platform iNaturalist continues to grow, it is increasingly important that these observations can be identified to the finest taxonomic level, maximizing their value for biodiversity research. Here, we explore the benefits of acting as an identifier on iNaturalist