Citizen science data on urban forageable plants: a case study in Brazil

Abstract

This paper presents two key data sets derived from the Pomar Urbano project. The first data set is a comprehensive catalog of edible fruit-bearing plant species, native or introduced to Brazil. The second data set, sourced from the iNaturalist platform, tracks the distribution and monitoring of these plants within urban landscapes across Brazil. The study includes data from the capitals of all 27 federative units of Brazil, focusing on the ten cities that contributed the most observations as of August 2023. The research emphasizes the significance of citizen science in urban biodiversity monitoring and its potential to contribute to various fields, including food and nutrition, creative industry, study of plant phenology, and machine learning applications. We expect the data sets presented in this paper to serve as resources for further studies in urban foraging, food security, cultural ecosystem services, and environmental sustainability.

Leveraging citizen science for monitoring urban forageable plants

“…For an overview of the data collected by Pomar Urbano and additional project details, please refer to the accompanying data paper by [ 6 ].…”

“…Pomar Urbano makes use of umbrella and collection projects. Observations posted to iNaturalist by any user are included if they (i) pertain to a plant species listed in the project and (ii) are located in one of the capitals of the 27 Brazilian federative units [ 6 ]. Each capital has its collection project.…”

“…The umbrella project then aggregates data from all 27 individual collection projects. Pomar Urbano data can be accessed via iNaturalist ( https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pomar-urbano ), and a backup is maintained on Zenodo [ 6 ].…”

“…For access to the datasets associated with the Pomar Urbano Project please see the Data Release paper published in GigaByte [ 6 ].…”