NatureWatch NZ is a citizen science website for recording New Zealand’s biodiversity. Many tens of observations are added each day, covering all kinds of life.
Botrychium australe, parsley fern. Image Mike Lusk CC BY-NC. http://naturewatch.org.nz/observations/1366930
The quantity of new observations might seem overwhelming if you’re actually just interested in a particular group – perhaps you:
- are studying echinoderms,
- want to share your knowledge of birds,
- are tracking pests like mustelids or the Mediterranean fanworm, or weeds like old man’s beard.
- or just love seeing slime moulds!
Fortunately, a more targeted approach is possible (think GCSB).
With NatureWatch, you can subscribe to receive an email-notification when an observation is added from your taxonomic group of interest. (The notifications are aggregated into one daily email, so you are not deluged even if you’re following a popular group.)
First, log in (or sign up with a username and password).
Once logged in, click on “Dashboard” in the upper right corner.
In your Dashboard, scroll down to “Your subscriptions” (on the right hand side of the page), and select “Add a place subscription”.
(Don’t select “taxon subscription” without seeing more information about it below.)
Select the geographic area (e.g., New Zealand) and group of organisms you’re interested in – the “Place” and “Taxon” – and save.
Your Place of interest doesn’t have to be a country – it can be a region (e.g., Northland) or some other area already defined in NatureWatch.
Your Taxon of interest may be a species, genus, family, or even a phylum.
Rather than a place subscription, you can instead make a taxon subscription. However, this will return all observations made from that taxon from around the world.
Then repeat for as many places and taxa you’re interested in.
Subscribing to particular sets of NatureWatch observations is an efficient way to find the observations relevant to you, be it for research, biosecurity, knowledge-sharing, or interest!