Learning about plants and sharing observations with new technologies. FLORAPYR and FLORAMON with iNaturalist

Abstract

Citizen science is in full expansion thanks to the availability of simple and powerful tools such as mobile apps. We present the two projects we have created for mountain plants in iNaturalist: "FLORAPYR" for the Pyrenean flora, and "FLORAMON: Flora of mountain National Parks" for the 6 Spanish mountain parks in the Iberian Peninsula. Half of the FLORAPYR collaborators have joined iNaturalist for the first time. Newcomers and older members who joined the project, have collected 60% of the total number of Pyrenean observations in one year. The second starts in summer 2022 and we hope that it will also become a good tool to join the efforts of citizens and professionals around the conservation of biodiversity in some of the richest areas of Europe.