Received: 7 June 2023 Accepted: 22 December 2023

DOI: 10.1111/icad.12711

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Ecology and Conservation of Urban Insects

The potential of iNaturalist for bee conservation research—A

study case in a southern Brazilian metropolis

O potencial do iNaturalist para pesquisas em conservação de

abelhas—estudo de caso em uma metro
pole no sul do Brasil

Felipe Walter Pereira 1,2 | Maristela Zamoner 3,4 | Rodrigo Barbosa Gonçalves 1

1

rio de Abelhas, Departamento de
Laborato Abstract

gicas,
Zoologia, Setor de Ciências Biolo
Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, 1. Citizen science can expand our knowledge of biodiversity and enhance conserva-
Brazil
tion programs by adding species records and associated data. This is the case for
2
Programa de Po
s-Graduação em Ecologia e
Evolução, Departamento de Ecologia, Campus bees—the main group of pollinators—with millions of observations on iNaturalist.
Samambaia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2. Here we ask if spontaneous observations made by citizen scientists on this platform
Goiânia, Brazil
3
provide a good picture of bee diversity in terms of taxonomic coverage
Museu Botânico Municipal de Curitiba,
Curitiba, Brazil (i.e., proportion of different subfamilies, tribes, genera and species), identification
4
Museu Aberto de Biodiversidade, Instituto de acuity (i.e., correct identification and at what taxonomic level) and taxonomic diver-
Ciência e Tecnologia em Biodiversidade,
Campina Grande do Sul, Brazil
sity. For this purpose, we compare iNaturalist observations with a dataset from a
structured local survey for Curitiba, a city of 2 million inhabitants in southern Brazil.
Correspondence
3. The search on iNaturalist resulted in 496 bee observations of 52 species, a richness

rio de Abelhas,
Felipe Walter Pereira, Laborato
Departamento de Zoologia, Setor de Ciências similar to the most urbanised sampling site from the local survey. Highly eusocial

gicas, Universidade Federal do Paraná,
Biolo
and large bees are, proportionally, more frequently observed by citizens than sam-
Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.
Email: felip3walter@gmail.com pled by professionals. Three citizen observers were responsible for more than 50%
of the observations in iNaturalist. About 45% of species were correctly identified
Editor: Laurence Packer and
Associate Editor: David Roubik and this number increased up to 85% after our validation.
4. We perceive that the spontaneous, non-structured, observations on iNaturalist
bring a biased representation of the bee fauna when compared to the structured
local survey. However, the platform shows a great potential to monitor large bodied
and eusocial bees, including rare and non-native species; thus, it may be valuable
for bee surveying, monitoring and conservation.

KEYWORDS
citizen science, conservation, pollinators, urban ecology

I N T R O D U CT I O N consuming and decelerates contextualised information to be used on

conservation (Hochkirch et al., 2021). Citizen science (CS) has broad-
Information is crucial for biodiversity conservation initiatives. Unfortu- ened the participation of people in scientific data acquisition and anal-
nately, to retrieve, curate and analyse biodiversity data are time ysis while bringing the general public closer to nature (Altrudi, 2021;

386 © 2024 Royal Entomological Society. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/icad Insect Conserv Divers. 2024;17:386–395.

INATURALIST FOR BEE RESEARCH
ECSA, 2015). Regarding biodiversity, CS data can complement tradi-
tional academic surveys by reducing sampling gaps, estimating abun-
dance and density of species over space and time, and also by
bringing information of interaction among species and with their habi-
tats (Amano et al., 2016; Callaghan et al., 2022). Additionally, CS is a
powerful approach to biodiversity studies, particularly in urban envi-
ronments, where data gathering is complicated due to highly variable
landscapes and where volunteers can collaborate in scientific research
(Prudic et al., 2018).
The iNaturalist (herein iNat) is a fast-growing world popular plat-
form to record and identify biodiversity (Di Cecco et al., 2021), sum-
ming by May 2022 almost 100 million observations of more than
343,000 species by more than 2 million users. The platform unites
images and metadata from public observations while allowing species
identification by both an automated machine learning algorithm using
computer vision (for details, see [https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/
computer_vision_demo]) and by expert’s validation. Besides geographi-
cal and temporal records, iNat can contribute with observations of live
specimens, associate behaviours and diverse ecological interactions
(Mesaglio & Callaghan, 2021). An advantage of iNat and other open
platforms is that it allows spontaneous (non-structured) observations.
These contributions can provide valuable assets for conservation, for
example, Wilson et al. (2017) reported the observations on iNat of an
IUCN vulnerable bumble bee, Bombus irisanensis Cockerell, endemic to
the Philippines archipelago. Another common usage of iNat observa-
tions by professional scientists is retrieving occurrence data for ecologi-
cal niche modelling purposes, such as the identification of potential
distribution areas and geographical range changes under climate change
scenarios (Beckham & Atkinson, 2017; Looney et al., 2019).
The bees are the most dominant pollinators worldwide
(Ollerton, 2017), with widely recognised importance by both academia
and society (Wilson et al., 2017), especially regarding their essential role
in pollination ecosystem services (IPBES, 2016; Klein et al., 2007). As a
group recognised for its ecological importance and threatened by global
decline, the bees can benefit directly from CS to increase their aware-
ness as a conservation strategy (Kawahara et al., 2021). Recently, Kof-
fler et al. (2021) summarised 88 studies that combine CS with
melittology, showing results of this fast-growing field, and emphasised
that CS projects with bees have potential for attaining some United
Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—especially SDG
11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 15 (Life on Land), and
SDG 17 (Partnerships), contributing to targets related to biodiversity
conservation, restoration and sustainable use (Koffler et al., 2021).
Considering only the iNat platform, there are more than 1.3
million observations of 3352 bee species contributed by more
than 211,000 observers around the globe. The number of
observed species corresponds to 16% of total recognised bee
species (20,507) worldwide (Ascher & Pickering, 2022)—a per-
centage expected to increase with the expanding participation of
new citizen scientists, as well as bee specialists to correctly iden-
tify the observations. However, the quality control of data—
accuracy (i.e., the degree to which data are correct) and bias
(i.e., systematic error in a dataset)—is one of the main challenges
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387
to make CS data usable for scientific purposes (Kosmala
et al., 2016). Taking this into account, we investigated whether
the spontaneous bee records on iNat provide a good picture of
bee diversity in terms of taxonomic sampling (i.e., proportion of
different subfamilies, tribes, genera and species), identification
acuity (i.e., correct identification and at what taxonomical level)
and taxonomic diversity. For this purpose, we analysed the
observations of bees from iNaturalist in light of a dataset from a
structured local survey. The study focused on Curitiba, a metrop-
olis in southern Brazil with one of the largest amounts of struc-
tured bee surveys in the world.
METHODS
Study area
The city of Curitiba is located in the state of Paraná, southern Brazil
(Figure 1), with almost 2 million inhabitants and a population density
of 4078 people per km2 (IBGE, 2022). The climate in the region is sub-
tropical (average summer temperature of 22 C, average winter tem-
perature of 17 C, average rainfall of 1480 mm; INMET—Instituto
Nacional de Meteorologia). The original local plant cover is a mix of
Araucaria forests and natural grasslands within the Atlantic Forest
ecoregion. A current checklist counted 369 bee species for Curitiba
(Gonçalves et al., 2023).
The Metropolitan Region of Curitiba, which comprises Curitiba
and other 28 nearby municipalities (summing almost 4 million inhabi-
tants), may have one of the largest amounts of data of long-term mon-
itoring of urban bees around the world. Four green areas were
sampled twice or more since the 1950s (Cardoso & Gonçalves, 2018;
Graf et al., 2022; Martins et al., 2013; Pereira et al., 2021; Taura &
Laroca, 2001), with accumulating evidence of local declines in abun-
dance, richness and diversity related to the growing urbanisation.
Thus, the large amount of structured data, that is, surveys with well-
described and standardised sampling protocols (Pereira et al., 2021;
Sakagami et al., 1967), for bees in Curitiba allows a robust comparison
with the CS data retrieved from iNat.
iNaturalist search and data preparation
We searched for ‘bees’ in the taxa search within the iNat (https://
www.inaturalist.org) and ‘Curitiba, PR, Brazil’ as the location filter.
The search was completed in September of 2021 and no filter for the
date range was applied (the first observation was added in July of
2014). Duplicate records were excluded (n = 2). The raw data are
available in the Supporting Information S1. Comparing data obtained
from CS platforms and the results of previous structured scientific
research is not a simple task, as there are substantial differences
between unstructured spontaneous observations by citizens and
structured scientific observations by researchers (Aceves-Bueno
et al., 2017). Not only the skills and knowledge of people collecting

388
F I G U R E 1 The city of Curitiba, southern Brazil, with the iNaturalist observations and the nine sites of the local survey. (a) Brazil (light grey),
the state of Paraná (dark grey), and Curitiba (black star); (b) The city of Curitiba, land cover from Graf et al. (2022), iNat observations localities
(black dots) and the nine sites of the local survey (red dots).
data are very different, but also the research period, research areas
and observation time. Therefore, first, we need to assume that the
two datasets (iNat observations and the local survey) are comparable
in terms of taxonomic coverage, identification acuity and taxonomic
diversity.
For assessing iNat spontaneous identification scores, we consid-
ered ‘correct’ when the identification matched the most specific tax-
onomic level we could validate, whereas ‘partial’ refers to
identifications considered as correct above species level, and ‘incor-
rect’ in the cases of erroneous identification at genus-level or higher
categories. Also, we categorised as ‘insufficient’ the identifications
at family level or above. For citizen scientists, we considered the
provided user name of each one in the platform. We followed the
single-family bee classification proposed by Melo and Gonçalves
(2005). Species-level identifications and validations followed taxo-
nomic revisions listed on Moure’s bee catalogue (http://moure.cria.
org.br) and by comparing the observations with specimens deposited
in the Jesus Santiago Moure Entomological Collection (DZUP). We
suggested the correct identifications for each observation in iNat.
Species were categorised into functional traits following the classifi-
cation of Martins et al. (2013), that includes: nesting habit (ground
nesting; above-ground nesting), sociality (solitary; primitively euso-
cial; highly eusocial), feeding habit (generalist; specialist) and body
size classes based on estimated intertegular distance (ITD), proposed
by Cane (1987). The body classes were categorised by Martins et al.
(2013) as follows: 1 (0.8–1.39 mm), 2 (1.4–1.89 mm), 3 (1.9–
2.29 mm), 4 (2.3–2.9 mm) and 5 (≥3.0 mm). Cleptoparasitic species
were considered within a separated functional group, except for
body size.
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PEREIRA ET AL.
Structured local survey
To compare the bee diversity recovered from iNat with a structured local
survey (herein, local survey), we retrieved species occurrence data from
nine sites with different urban-natural landscape composition. Bees were
sampled with sweep nets monthly, carried out for 6 h/day, from August
2017 to May 2018, excluding the winter months of June and July (for
more sampling details, see Graf et al., 2022). We choose the study by
Graf et al. (2022) as the local survey dataset especially due to two rea-
sons: first, it is the most recent standardised bee survey in Curitiba city;
and second, it covers different regions of the city (Figure 1b). The data
from the nine sites were pooled for richness, abundance and functional
group relative comparisons between iNat observation and the local sur-
vey, while analysed separately in accumulation curves. For comparisons,
we exclude from iNat dataset: (a) Apis mellifera Linnaeus, 1758, not sam-
pled by Graf et al. (2022); (b) observations of stingless bee nests (natural
or managed), not considered by Graf et al. (2022), and in order to reduce
bias of managed bees observations; and (c) observations that could not
be identified at least at genus-level, which we considered inconclusive
observations. Also, all observations for Augochloropsis and Megachile
were considered only at genus-level due to identification uncertainty
based on photographs for these two taxa.
Species diversity curves
Diversity curves were generated in R version 4.1.0 (R Development Core
Team, 2021), using iNEXT (Hsieh et al., 2020) and ‘ggplot2’ (Wickham
et al., 2022) packages. This approach allows comparison among different

INATURALIST FOR BEE RESEARCH
sample sizes. iNEXT provides functions that compute and plot rarefac-
tion and extrapolation of species diversity for abundance or incidence
data (Hsieh et al., 2016). Sampled-size-based rarefaction extrapolation
curves (REC) were made considering two Hill numbers—richness (q = 0)
and Shannon diversity (q = 1). We choose Shannon diversity index
because it counts species proportionally to their abundances, which is
more interesting to our questions, whereas Simpson diversity (the other
Hill number of choice in iNEXT, q = 2) is less sensitive to rare species
and considers the effective number of dominant species (Chao
et al., 2014; Hsieh et al., 2016). Hsieh et al. (2016) recommend that the
‘endpoint’ is reliable up to double the reference sample size, beyond that
the prediction bias is larger, thus we used ‘endpoint = 1556’, double the
sample size of Site 1 (Graf et al., 2022).
RESULTS
The search on iNat resulted in 496 bee observations of 52 species.
Among these, there were a total of 41 observations from nests: 36 for
stingless bees, 3 for carpenter bees and 2 for honey bees. The most
F I G U R E 2 Pie charts representing Curitiba bee composition in the iNaturalist and the local survey datasets. The bees are classified at the
subfamily-level, except for common Apinae (shades of green), bumble bees (Bombini), stingless bees (Meliponini) and carpenter bees (Xylocopini).
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389
observed species was the introduced Apis mellifera with 91 records. A
total of 94 citizen scientists contributed to bee observations in Curi-
tiba in iNat. Most users (n = 52; 55%) contributed with a single obser-
vation focused on Apis, Bombus or Meliponini. The most prolific
observer was ‘zamoner_maristela’ (n = 165; 33%), the second author
of this contribution, followed by ‘bettikz’ (n = 57; 11%) and ‘clarice-
dorocinski’ (n = 42; 8%), these three women accounted for 52% of
the observations summing up 44 species of 52. Most identifications
were considered correct (n = 227, 46%) or partial (n = 217, 43%),
whereas incorrect (n = 18, 4%) and insufficient (n = 34, 7%) were less
frequent. We were not able to identify four observations below
genus-group level, whereas 72 records were identified only at this
level. After our identifications, 73 observations could not be attrib-
uted with a valid name (15%). For comparison with the local survey
dataset, 362 iNat observations were considered, with 39 species with
valid names and 14 morphospecies distributed in 32 genera.
A total of four subfamilies and 14 tribes were recorded, with
stingless bees as the richest and most abundant group. Bumble bees
and carpenter bees were, proportionally, more abundant in citizen sci-
entists’ observations when compared with the local survey (Figure 2).
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390 PEREIRA ET AL.

F I G U R E 3 Two of the species observed in iNaturalist by ‘zamoner_maristela’ (M. Zamoner). Both records are deposited in Coleção Ecolo
gica
de Entomologia of Museu Aberto de Biodiversidade do Instituto de Ciência e Tecnologia em Biodiversidade—ICTBIO. (a) Trigona spinipes (ICTBIO
number: 2023-1111) on flower of Wittrockia cyathiformis (Vell.) Leme.; (b) Centris (Xanthemisia) sp. (ICTBIO number: 2021-0840A-C) on a flower
of Ludwigia peruviana.

F I G U R E 4 Relative functional richness of bees on iNaturalist observations and local survey. Primitively eusocial and intermediate body sizes
are represented in lighter tons.

Excluding the honey bee, the most observed species was Trigona spi-
nipes (Fabricius, 1793) (n = 55) (Figure 3a), followed by Bombus morio
(Swederus, 1787) (n = 36) and Bombus pauloensis Friese, 1913
(n = 32). The most observed sweat bee was Augochlora daphnis Smith,
1853 (n = 24), also the most abundant halictine bee in the local sur-
vey. No species of cellophane bees (Colletinae) were observed in iNat,
whereas 22 species were recorded in the local survey. iNat exclusive
observations include a species of oil-collecting Centris from a subge-
nus not formally recorded in the city—Centris (Xanthemisia) Moure,
1945 (Figure 3b). Among non-native species, iNat observations
include the wool-carder bee Anthidium manicatum (Linnaeus, 1758)
and three species of Meliponini that do not occur naturally in the
region: Friesella schrottkyi Friese, 1900; Melipona mondury Smith,
1863; and Tetragonisca angustula (Latreille, 1811). These four non-
native species were also found in the local survey.
Regarding functional groups (Figure 4), above-ground nesters,
highly eusocial, and generalist species were more frequent on iNat
observations than ground-nesters, solitary and specialist species.
Cleptoparasites corresponded to only 6% of the observed richness,
half of the proportion found in the local survey. No substantial

INATURALIST FOR BEE RESEARCH
F I G U R E 5 Bee diversity accumulation curves (and 95% confidence intervals) comparing iNaturalist observations (iNat) among the nine sites
of the Curitiba local survey, based on the Hill numbers for richness and Shannon diversity.
differences were observed in intermediate body sizes (categories 2, 3
and 4), but small bees (ITD <1.4 mm) were less frequent than larger
bees (ITD >3 mm) on iNat observations, whereas the opposite pattern
was found in the local survey. Although iNat richness is the lowest
when compared with the nine local survey sites (52 species), the
extrapolated richness surpassed Site 1, the most urbanised site
(66 species) in Graf et al. (2022). The Shannon diversity curve is similar
between iNat and Site 1 (Figure 5), with overlapping confidence
intervals.
DISCUSSION
The Curitiba iNat observations and the most urbanised site from the
local survey have overlapped estimations of diversity metrics—
richness and Shannon diversity. This is an expected result, assuming
that most citizen observations are made near anthropic landscapes,
such as urban gardens (Di Cecco et al., 2021). Thus, iNat observations
recover a bee diversity more similar to a moderate to highly urbanised
area (Graf et al., 2022). The low diversity can also reflect the lesser
skill of untrained observers when compared with experienced ones,
analogous to the collector efficiency of handling sweep nets (Prado
et al., 2017). Another key point is that photographs depend on bee
conspicuity and stasis on flowers—they should be photographable
(Di Cecco et al., 2021). Even considering that more spontaneous
observations could lead to an increase in the number of recorded spe-
cies (Figure 5), Shannon diversity would not be expected to increase
substantially, as it gives more weight to common species (Mouillot &
Leprêtre, 1999). On the other hand, scientific outreach actions, like
the production of observation and identification guides and public lec-
tures could positively increase local diversity recorded on iNat. By
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391
reconciling scientific results and environmental education practices,
the principles of CS, as stated by European Citizen Science Associa-
tion, are fulfilled with benefits for both professional and citizen scien-
tists (ECSA, 2015).
Eusocial bees were frequently observed on both iNat and the
local survey. This finding represents the high abundance of these spe-
cies in flowers, as the case of the honey bee. Apis mellifera is indeed
the second most frequent species of all species in the iNat database
worldwide (Di Cecco et al., 2021). The most common stingless bee
species from iNat, Trigona spinipes, is also one of the most common
bee species in the local survey (Graf et al., 2022). Historical records
are showing that the population of this species is increasing over time
and benefiting from the urbanisation process (Cardoso &
Gonçalves, 2018). A similar trend occurred with two bumble bee spe-
cies (B. morio and B. pauloensis) (Martins et al., 2013). Monitoring of
eusocial species could benefit from CS efforts also by monitoring nat-
ural and managed hives, as nests of eusocial species are often
observed and recorded by iNat users.
In terms of relative abundance, the iNat dataset also overrepre-
sented larger bees. Nearly a third of the observed species in the iNat
dataset fall into the larger body size class, but this corresponds to only
10% of the species in the local survey. This is an expected result, since
body size is a determinant for inexperienced observers, who tend to
more easily detect and recognise larger bee species than smaller ones;
a similar pattern was described by Callaghan et al. (2021) for larger
bodied birds in iNaturalist observations. Taking this observation bias
into account, oriented efforts to monitor large bees could be success-
ful in CS projects, while scientific outreach initiatives and training are
required to improve the detection of smaller bees by citizen
scientists—who hardly know about the existence of small-bodied
species.

392
We find low relative frequencies of functional groups considered
more sensitive to urbanisation: ground-nesters, specialists and
cleptoparasites. Ground-nesting bees suffer directly with soil imper-
meabilization in urban landscapes, being more vulnerable than above-
grounders (Bates et al., 2011; McCune et al., 2020; Pereira
et al., 2021; Xie et al., 2013). Specialists depend on a few plants to
gather pollen or other plant resources, such as floral oils, and were
considered as the most affected group by urbanisation in Curitiba
(Graf et al., 2022). Cleptoparasites are the first guild to respond to
habitat disturbances (Sheffield et al., 2013) and also respond nega-
tively to urbanisation in the study region (Graf et al., 2022). This low
relative frequency of observations of such groups could not be
decoupled from the prevalence of their counterparts, for example,
Bombini, Meliponini and Xylocopini, abundant bees in iNat observa-
tions, are classified as above-ground nesters and generalists. Thus, the
observation bias in iNat is mainly related to two factors: the tendency
to detect larger bees more easily and also the influence of urbanisa-
tion on the bee fauna.
Another acknowledged contribution of iNat is the documentation
of exotic species, as discussed by Rosa et al. (2022) for molluscs. Our
observations include two non-native species of stingless bees not for-
mally documented in Curitiba: mirim-preguiça (Friesella schrottkyi) and
bugia (Melipona mondury). Mirim-preguiça occurs naturally in south-
eastern Brazil and the bugia is distributed in the coastal Atlantic For-
est, both without unmanaged nest records in Curitiba. The impact of
cultivation of non-native stingless bees in Curitiba was recently dis-
cussed by Graf et al. (2020) in the first report of uruçu-nordestina
(Melipona scutellaris) in the region. It is a bigger problem in the coun-
try, at least 33 stingless bee species are commercialised in Brazil and
several of those are illegally traded out of their native range
(Carvalho, 2022; Santos et al., 2021). Such beehive trade poses poten-
tial problems through biological invasions, dissemination of symbionts
and pathogens, and competition with native unmanaged bees
(Carvalho, 2022; Santos et al., 2021). We agree that beekeeping for
hobby, honey production or even for a presumed contribution to con-
servation can be negative when decoupled with scientific knowledge
of species distribution and national legislation policies.
A few observers contributed most observations, whereas the vast
majority of citizen scientists contributed a few. Di Cecco et al. (2021)
found that most iNat users are low-frequency observers, whereas the
top 10% prolific observers provide about 87% of observations identi-
fied to species-level up to 2019. In our study case, the top observer
was responsible for one-third of the observations. Maristela Zamoner
(user ‘zamoner_maristela’) is co-author of this contribution and is
strongly engaged with CS attempts in Curitiba. The other two top
observers, Elizabeth Krüger Zimmermann (user ‘bettikz’) and Clarice
Dorocinski (user ‘claricedorocinski’), contributed with around
50 observations each. If records made by these three most active
users were excluded, only 32 of 52 species would be observed in
Curitiba. It was expected that the initial observations would be of
common species, whereas the most experienced observers focus on
documentation of rare species, even biasing the natural abundance
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PEREIRA ET AL.
(Altrudi, 2021). This seems not to be the case here, since the top
observers also accounted for 66% of honey bee observations. As
reported by Kelling et al. (2015), in a study of citizen scientists bird
observations on the eBird platform, the observer’s ability to detect
species improves with practice and continued participation leads to
higher quality data provided by volunteers in CS projects. In this way,
we expect that the ability to detect bee species could improve with
oriented efforts and training. In addition, initiatives engaging new vol-
unteers and promoting continued participation could lead to an
increase in the number of observations, as well as ensuring high
quality data.
The rate of correct identifications (46%) could result from crowd-
sourced validation procedures of iNat, especially with participation of
professional scientists that devote a substantial amount of time on the
platform. Identifiers are defined to be participants with reasonable
expertise, or more accurately someone with the skills and ability to
make informed identifications (Callaghan, Mesaglio, et al., 2022). About
60% of bee identifications from the analysed dataset were carried out
by the iNat curator John S. Ascher, an experienced professional melit-
tologist, responsible for the Apoidea DiscoverLife database (Ascher &
Pickering, 2022). Nevertheless, most observations for Curitiba were
not correctly identified at the lower taxonomic level possible. This rep-
resents a major obstacle for conducting reliable biodiversity research
without specimen examination. Identification is not a simple task for
any organism, even for mammals, many smaller species could not be
accurately identified by photographs (Kays et al., 2022). The poor qual-
ity of some photographs could hamper identification as verified by Rosa
et al. (2022). Taxonomic changes also influence the iNat identifications,
this is the case in the identification of two similar species of jataí (Tetra-
gonisca angustula and T. fiebrigi) that were previously considered as syn-
onyms or subspecies. Most observations were identified as
T. angustula, considered non-native for Curitiba. Tetragonisca fiebrigi,
the native species, could be identified with photographs by the yellow-
ish mesepisternum (i.e., the main lateral portion of thorax), in contrast
to the black mesepisternum in T. angustula. Hence, taxonomist exami-
nation and proper specimen vouchering are the desired standards for
species identification (Packer et al., 2018).
Ultimately, one of the main challenges of CS is the quality control
of results, here investigated in terms of data capture and classification
(Kosmala et al., 2016). The unstructured, opportunistic observations
(data capture) on iNat bring a biased representation of the bee fauna
when compared with the local survey; however, they show a great
potential to monitor large-bodied and eusocial pollinators, including
rare and non-native species in the city. The increase of correct identi-
fications was from an original 46% to 85% with our identifications,
indicating the requirement for professional validation on CS, especially
from specialists who are familiar with the local fauna. Bees are a char-
ismatic pollinator group that opportunistic observers are naturally
drawn to (Di Cecco et al., 2021) and structured actions, as locally
based training of citizen scientists, can be remarkably effective and
can increase the relevance of CS to bring reliable information to con-
servation biology. We emphasise that these actions must be led by

INATURALIST FOR BEE RESEARCH
specialists who can enthuse the general public, in order to bring scien-
tific knowledge closer to society. Citing Wilson et al. (2017) ‘to nar-
row the gap between the public’s interest in bee conservation and the
public’s understanding of bees, conservation efforts should include
improved outreach and education’. Therefore, CS strategies for edu-
cation, such as training in better photo captures and basic taxonomic
identifications, can achieve valuable improvements in CS datasets, as
well as to overcome some observation biases.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Felipe Walter Pereira: Conceptualization; methodology; data curation;
investigation; validation; formal analysis; visualization;
writing – original draft; writing – review and editing. Maristela
Zamoner: Data curation; validation; investigation; writing – original
draft; writing – review and editing. Rodrigo Barbosa Gonçalves: Con-
ceptualization; methodology; data curation; investigation; validation;
supervision; visualization; writing – original draft; writing – review and
editing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMEN TS
We would like to express our gratitude to 94 citizen scientists who
contributed with bee observations in iNaturalist in Curitiba, Brazil, and
namely the 13 citizen scientists who observed each species for the
first time and agreed to be thanked here: Adolf C. Krüger (‘ackruger’),
Anderson Warkentin (‘andersonwarkentin’), Elizabeth Krüger Zimmer-
mann (‘bettikz’), Clarice Dorocinski (‘claricedorocinski’), David
B. Muniz (‘david_bio’), Deni L. Schwartz Filho (‘deni_schwartz’), Evan-
dro H. Maia (‘ehmaia’), Fabio L. dos Santos (‘flsantos’), Gustavo Dorti
(‘gustavo235’), Luiz Kalashnikov (‘luizk’), Igor Becker (‘particle_-
ghost’), Karine L. O. de Barros (‘profekaciencias’), Thaís
F. Theodoroski (‘thaisquisita’). We also thank Marcelo L. Brotto and
Felipe E. C. Marinero for plant identifications, Gabriel A. R. Melo for
assistance with species identification, and Dra. Letícia V. Graf for pro-
viding the land cover layers for Curitiba. We are grateful to the editor
Prof. Dr. Laurence Packer and two anonymous reviewers, who pro-
vided valuable comments and suggestions that improved the quality
of the manuscript. We are also grateful to the Conselho Nacional de

gico (CNPq) for F.W.P. Master’s
Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnolo
scholarship (process 131203/2021-5) and R.B.G. research productiv-
ity grant (process 307671/2021-6).
CONF LICT OF IN TE RE ST ST AT E MENT
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVAI LAB ILITY S TATEMENT
The data that supports the findings of this study are available in the
supplementary material of this article.
ORCID
Felipe Walter Pereira https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0888-8804
Rodrigo Barbosa Gonçalves https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5623-
0938
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393
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SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional supporting information can be found online in the Support-
ing Information section at the end of this article.
Sheet S1. Raw data of each observation from iNaturalist, categorised
into: bee subfamily; corrected ID; original ID; ID status; username;
locality; observed date; added date; latitude; longitude; nest (yes/no);
iNaturalist reference.
17524598, 2024, 2, Downloaded from https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/icad.12711 by UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE GOIAS, Wiley Online Library on [13/03/2024]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
395
Sheet S2. Bee species in both local survey and iNaturalist datasets.
Each bee species with its respective abundance in each site from local
survey and iNaturalist observations. Functional traits presented for
each species.
Sheet S3. Sampling sites from local survey, with coordinates in deci-
mal degrees (DD) format.
Sheet S4. Functional traits of bees per dataset.
How to cite this article: Pereira, F.W., Zamoner, M. &
Gonçalves, R.B. (2024) The potential of iNaturalist for bee
conservation research—A study case in a southern Brazilian
metropolis. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 17(2), 386–395.
Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12711