Smartphone data can help create global vegetation maps

The results demonstrated the potential of using citizen science data e.g. from iNaturalist to help map plant traits on a global scale. Foto: Tony Iwane - INaturalist app users play a significant role in helping researchers create global maps of plant traits <p><strong>Leipzig. Missing knowledge in the global distribution of plant traits could be filled with data from species identification apps. Researchers from Leipzig University, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and other institutions were able to demonstrate this based on data from the popular iNaturalist app. Supplemented with data on plant traits, iNaturalist input results in considerably more precise maps than previous approaches based on extrapolation from limited databases. Among other things, the new maps provide an improved basis for understanding plant-environment interactions and for Earth system modelling. The study has been published in the journal <em>Nature Ecology and Evolution</em>.