Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 9: e179381 doi: 10.3897/biss.9.179381 Conference Abstract Educating To Recognize and Value Local Biodiversity: From the University to the Community, With the Help of iNaturalist Juan Miguel Cancino , Paola González-Kother , Jaime Andrés Villafaña , Natalia Carolina Rebolledo , Leonardo Alexis Mondaca ‡ Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile Corresponding author: Juan Miguel Cancino (
[email protected]) Received: 22 Nov 2025 | Published: 26 Nov 2025 Citation: Cancino J, González-Kother P, Villafaña J, Rebolledo N, Mondaca L (2025) Educating To Recognize and Value Local Biodiversity: From the University to the Community, With the Help of iNaturalist. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 9: e179381. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.9.179381 Abstract iNaturalist* is a digital citizen science platform that allows the presence of species to be identified and geolocated. In Chile, it was adopted by the Ministry of the Environment* and is widely used by academics, students and the public. This platform has become a valuable educational tool at the Catholic University of the Most Holy Conception (USCS)* , allowing students to experience being protagonists in the generation of knowledge, which is made instantly available to a community of millions of naturalists around the world. In the process, students learn to recognize the various species that exist in a given study site, a fundamental step to value and promote the conservation of biodiversity. The objective of this work is to share the progress made with 14 projects created since 2021 to the present, brought together under the umbrella project "Naturalists in Action"* (Fig. 1), with its concrete application to the registration of biodiversity on the main university campus, and moving forward into projects that involve community organizations. One hundred and eighty-three students from 23 undergraduate and graduate programs at UCSC (Fig. 2) have participated in these projects, with more than 6400 observations, 1190 species registered and identified, with the online collaboration of more than 800 specialists and naturalists in general (Fig. 1). ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ 1 2 3 4 © Cancino J et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Nearly 70% of the students who learned to use the application in curricular activities at UCSC have remained active on iNaturalist (Fig. 3), showing the interest generated by the knowledge of local biodiversity. In agreement with Di Cecco et al. (2021), a few of them stayed very active (Fig. 3). The most recent actions involve the creation of collection projects for areas delimited by a .kml file, such as the one created for the San Andrés Campus* . In addition, students and academics have collaborated with citizen organizations that wish to promote the 5 Figure 1. Naturalist in Action, the iNaturalist umbrella project. Figure modified from a screenshot from iNaturalist website, with information retrieved on September 23, 2025* Figure under the Cre ative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. 4 Figure 2. Composition of the community of students who have learned to use iNaturalist at the UCSC 2021–2025. Figure under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. 2Cancino J et al
conservation of nature, in places of interest, by virtue of the biodiversity they host, or for the cultural value they represent. Emblematic iNaturalist projects are the ones generated to accompany the conference cycles created in alliance with the Museo de Historia Natural de Concepción (2024), Museo de Historia Natural de Concepción (2025a), Museo de Historia Natural de Concepción (2025b), entitled “Luciérnagas en Concepción”* and “Puya chilensis Santuario de la Naturaleza Península de Hualpén”* . Both include lectures at the Museum and registration of people interested in sighting the organisms of interest in the field. Fireflies and P. chilensis are two types of charismatic organisms that help to promote the conservation of habitats and biodiversity on a local scale. Keywords environmental education, iNaturalist projects, Concepción, Chile. Presenting author Juan Miguel Cancino 6 7 Figure 3. Frequency distribution of the number of new observations (blue bars) and new species records (dotted line, black numbers) contributed since the end of the project by observers involved at UCSC. Figure under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Educating To Recognize and Value Local Biodiversity: From the University ... 3
*1 *2 *3 *4 *5 Presented at Living Data 2025 Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank UCSC for providing the conditions to innovate teaching with actions such as those described here, as well as to the students who, with their enthusiasm for understanding nature, have been part of the iNaturalist collection projects. We also give our thanks to our colleagues at the Faculty of Science and to our external partners of the Natural History Museum, Concepción. Conflicts of interest The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. References • Di Cecco GJ, Barve V, Belitz MW, Stucky BJ, Guralnick RP, Hurlbert AH (2021) Observing the Observers: How Participants Contribute Data to iNaturalist and Implications for Biodiversity Science. BioScience 71 (11): 1179‑1188. https://doi.org/ 10.1093/biosci/biab093 • Museo de Historia Natural de Concepción (2024) https://www.mhnconcepcion.gob.cl/ noticias/destellos-al-atardecer-luciernagas-en-el-gran-concepcion. Accessed on: 2025-11-01. • Museo de Historia Natural de Concepción (2025a) https://www.mhnconcepcion.gob.cl/ cartelera/ciclo-destellos-al-atardecer-luciernagas-en-el-gran-concepcion-0. Accessed on: 2025-11-01. • Museo de Historia Natural de Concepción (2025b) El Museo y la Facultad de Ciencias UCSC invitaron a la comunidad a conocer los secretos de la Puya o Chagual. https:// www.mhnconcepcion.gob.cl/noticias/el-museo-y-la-facultad-de-ciencias-ucsc-invitaronla-comunidad-conocer-los-secretos-de-la. Accessed on: 2025-11-01. Endnotes https://www.inaturalist.org https://inaturalist.mma.gob.cl/ https://www.ucsc.cl https://inaturalist.mma.gob.cl/projects/naturalistas-en-accion https://inaturalist.mma.gob.cl/projects/biodiversidad-campus-san-andres-ucsc 4Cancino J et al
*6 *7 Luciérnagas en Concepción · iNaturalist Chile: https://inaturalist.mma.gob.cl/projects /luciernagas-en-concepcion Puya chilensis Santuario de la Naturaleza Península de Hualpén · iNaturalist Chile: https://inaturalist.mma.gob.cl/projects/puya-chilensis-santuario-de-la-naturalezapeninsula-de-hualpen Educating To Recognize and Value Local Biodiversity: From the University ... 5
