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iNaturalist Users Exhibit Distinct Spatiotemporal Sampling Preferences, with Implications for Biodiversity Science and Project Planning Cover

iNaturalist Users Exhibit Distinct Spatiotemporal Sampling Preferences, with Implications for Biodiversity Science and Project Planning

Open Access
|Jan 2026

Figures & Tables

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Figure 1

a)Map of southeastern USA focal region. b) The cumulative percent of all focal observations by percent of users contributing these observations. c) Proportion of users in each of the defined user groups, and proportion of observations made by each group.

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Figure 2

iNaturalist observation quality grade proportions made by each of the four defined user groups: casual locals, casual travelers, highly active locals, and highly active travelers.

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Figure 3

Proportion of observations made by each of the four defined user groups across spatial and temporal variables. Grey bars represent expected proportion based on land area for spatial variables and day ratios for the temporal variable.

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Figure 4

Percent difference between expected and realized sampling across land cover, protected land, urban areas, urban parks, low-income urban areas, and weekends for each of the four defined user groups. Blue lines right of zero indicate overrepresentation and red lines left of zero indicate underrepresentation.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.868 | Journal eISSN: 2057-4991
Language: English
Submitted on: May 1, 2025
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Accepted on: Jan 1, 2026
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Published on: Jan 29, 2026
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2026 Erin L. Grady, Caitlin J. Campbell, Corey T. Callaghan, Robert P. Guralnick, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.