iNat has not made it easy, but it is possible to search for leafminers/parasites by the host species using url search parameters. To start go to all observations in this project (or anywhere else really), in this example the URL is:
Each chunk of this url after the ?
is a 'url parameter', and each parameter is separated with a &
. So this url is using these three parameters:
To search for an Observation field you can use this parameter: field:Host=taxonId
to the url string. The taxonId
you need to use can be found in the url for the host species. Using Australian Tea Tree (Gaudium laevigatum) as an example, that species URL is:
The ID is the number 1546134
, so to search for any observations with that host species you can use this url
This is also why it's important to use the Host
attribute when posting galls and other parasites. If you use some variation like Host ID
or nothing at all we aren't able to search this way.
There is another way I use a lot, a hidden part of a taxon's UI which you can turn on with a different url parameter: test=interactions
. This UI will add a new tab called Interactions to the taxon's page and it will fill up with data it gathered using attributes like Host
:
About Interactions
Most organisms interact with other organisms in some way or another, and how they do so usually defines how they fit into an ecosystem. These interactions come to us from Global Biotic Interactions (GLoBI), a database and webservice that combines interaction data from numerous sources, including iNaturalist. You can actually contribute to this database by adding the "Eating", "Eaten by", and "Host" observation fields to observations that demonstrate those interactions.
This UI is not perfect, it's a little primitive, loads slowly and I've noticed sometimes species don't appear that I think should. But it has helped me find parasite information many times and I check it constantly. Using Myrtle Leafminer Moth as the example again here is a direct link to the tab (the #interactions-tab
tells the UI to open that tab directly saving you a click):
Here you will see a list of species under the heading hasHost
, this list is populated by the Host
field, but not other similar fields like Host ID
, Host Plant
, etc. In this case there are only one species listed.
So you can just copy and paste this string ?test=interactions#interactions-tab
onto any iNat taxon URL to directly access this UI. I hope this helps you identify some parasites!
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