No abstract

In spite of their recognized importance as seed dispersers in other parts of the tropics, seed dispersal by fruit bats has received scant research attention in Africa. To evaluate the role of African fruit bats in seed dispersal, we studied fruits and seeds below 480 bat feeding roosts in the East Usambara Mountains of Tanzania. We compared these findings to those reported in other African localities to place our results in a broader context. We found 49 plant species dispersed by bats: 28 species, 18 genera, and one family are novel reports of bat dispersal in Africa. Approximately 20 percent of the submontane tree flora of the East Usambaras is bat‐dispersed, including both widespread and endemic trees. African fruit bats are important seed dispersers at our study site because they move seeds of dozens of species tens or hundreds of meters, even seeds that are too large to ingest (greater than 5 mm in length). Fruit bats are likely important seed dispersers in other Afrotropical forests, as bats elsewhere in Africa are known to consume 20 genera and 16 species of plants reported here. Insights from studying remains under bat feeding roosts offer a simple method to further document and substantially increase our understanding of the role of African fruit bats in seed dispersal.

Since 2008, iNaturalist has been crowdsourcing identifications for biodiversity observations collected by citizen scientists. Today iNaturalist has over 25 million records of wild biodiversity with photo or audio evidence, from every country, representing more than 230,000 species, collected by over 700,000 people, and with 90,000 people helping others with identifications. Hundreds of publications have used iNaturalist data to advance research, conservation, and policy. There are three key themes that iNaturalist has embraced: social interaction; shareability of data, tools, and code; and scalability of the platform and community. The keynote will share reflections on what has (and has not) worked for iNaturalist while drawing on other examples from biodiversity informatics and citizen science. Insights about user motivations, synergistic collaborations, and strategic decisions about scaling offer some transferable approaches to address the broadly applicable questions: Which species is represented? How do we make the best use of the available biodiversity information? And how do we build something viable and enduring in the process?

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.