Citizen science contribution to plant diversity knowledge: Insights from iNaturalist in central Argentina

Abstract

The recent expansion of biodiversity recording through citizen science projects represents a valuable tool for enriching our knowledge of biota. Given the rapid ecosystem changes driven by human activities, plant communities may experience species loss and an increase in the proportion of widely distributed and exotic species. To assess these patterns using citizen science data, it is necessary to account for sampling accuracy and potential biases in species recording. In this study, we analyse the contribution of the citizen science platform iNaturalist to the diversity of vascular plants in the Province of Córdoba in central Argentina, one of the regions with the greatest loss of natural habitat in South America. Specifically, we evaluated the completeness of the iNaturalist data, their species richness and compositional differences compared to museum records, and species representation across different taxonomic groups, origins, and abundance categories. iNaturalist has documented half of the plant species in Córdoba province in just a few years. However, a thousand species remain to be recorded to reach the maximum species richness. iNaturalist plant diversity was a subsample of the museum records, overrepresented by species of particular families, abundant and exotic species, and from the mountainous Chaco ecoregion. Graminoids and rare species are poorly represented on iNaturalist. In addition, nearly one hundred species previously unreported for Córdoba and Argentina were identified. iNaturalist is a tool with the potential to enrich biodiversity records. Citizen science can enhance current knowledge of native plant richness, facilitate the monitoring of invasive alien species, and contribute to the conservation of endemic, rare, and threatened species.