Deriving inventories of non-native plant species from iNaturalist: Insights from urban centres of the Western Cape, South Africa

By

Gildenhuys, Christiaan P.
Potgieter, Luke
Hui, Cang
Richardson, David

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-11-13

Original Publication

NeoBiota : advancing research on alien species and biological invasions

Volume

104

Pages

27--58

Subjects

alien plant species , Biological invasions , Citizen science , community science , inventory , plant invasions , Urban ecology

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sophia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.104.155832

 

Abstract

Accurate, up-to-date inventories of non-native species are important to document and improve our understanding of biological invasions globally and inform management decisions. Traditional methods for the collation of inventories are time- and resource intensive, and lists become outdated if not regularly updated. The community science platform iNaturalist can contribute to the collation of regularly updatable (“living”) inventories of non-native species. However, robust and transparent workflows are needed to optimise data quality to take full advantage of iNaturalist. We present the semi-Automated Non-Native Inventory Compilation (sANNIC) workflow for the collation and completeness assessment of non-native vascular plant inventories from iNaturalist. The workflow is informed by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) and is used to compare native ranges to a reference area. The utility of the workflow is demonstrated by compiling non-native species inventories of 100 urban centres in the Western Cape province, South Africa. A total of 947 taxa of wild-growing, i.e. casual, naturalised and invasive plants were observed in these urban centres which showed varying levels of sample completeness. Most small towns had too few records for a completeness assessment. Larger urban centres and those near the coast were typically better sampled. This work highlights the potential for iNaturalist to construct non-native species inventories given sufficient coverage and thorough curation.