Hans Zauner

**Few countries have a biodiversity that's comparable to Brazil's,
including plant-based food sources that are little known elsewhere. 
Even in big cities you may pick all kinds of fruit directly from the
tree, which can be both tasty and also interesting for the botanist. The
Citizen Science project "Pomar Urbano" collects data on urban
fruit-bearing plant in Brazilian cities. First results have now been
published in *GigaByte*.**

In addition to the obvious benefit of having free food growing in your
local park, fruit-bearing plants in the middle of the city also
"*promote human health and well-being by fostering a connection with
nature"*, as the [new *GigaByte*
paper](https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.107) notes. The authors, Filipi
Miranda Soares and co-workers, decided to learn more about these urban
biodiversity treasures. And they  involved the local population of city
dwellers in exploring them: Using the
[iNaturalist](https://www.inaturalist.org/) platform, they initiated a
Citizen Science project called "[Pomar
Urbano](https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pomar-urbano)" (meaning
"urban orchard")  to collect observations of  fruit-bearing plants in
all major Brazilian cities. Also don't miss their [commentary in
*GigaScience*](https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giae007), talking
about their experience in using the iNaturalist platform for Citizen
Science.

In their *GigaByte* data release they present the first results of this
project in English and Portuguese (read more about our multi-lingual
articles
[here](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/how-to-publish-multilingual-articles/)). 
The data include, firstly, an expert-curated list of 429 fruit bearing
plant species found in Brazil, both native and introduced. The second
data set presents around 11.000 observations of these species from 27
major Brazilian cities, collected by citizen scientists in the
iNaturalist app.

## The urban top ten: native and introduced plants

Plants frequently observed in Brazilian cities include native species
such as the Pekea Nut, *Caryocar brasiliense*,  which is also the
species with the highest number of observations in the capital
Brasilia.  However, the authors also note interesting differences
between cities: In contrast to the capital Brasilia, which is
characterized by the presence of many local species,  in São Paulo for
example only four of the "top ten" observations are native; frequent
observations in São Paulo include many introduced plants such as loquat,
which is native to Asia (by the way, a chromosome-scale genome assembly
of loquat has been [published in
*GigaScience*](https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giaa015)).

::: {#attachment_5680 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 822px"}
![Citizen Science observations of fruit bearing plants in the capital
Brasilia.](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/gigabyte-2024-107-g002.jpg){.wp-image-5680
.size-full loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5680" width="812" height="427"
srcset="http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/gigabyte-2024-107-g002.jpg 812w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/gigabyte-2024-107-g002-300x158.jpg 300w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/gigabyte-2024-107-g002-768x404.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 812px) 100vw, 812px"}

*The "top ten" iNaturalist observations of fruit bearing plants in the
capital Brasilia. (via
<https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pomar-de-brasilia.> )*
:::

Central to the success of this biodiversity project is the iNaturalist
platform. Via the app,  users of all walks of life -- no taxonomic
knowledge required! -- can easily upload their nature observations.
Usually an observation is a photo (but it can also be a voice recording
of a birds, for example), together with metadata including date and
location of the sighting. The AI identification model built into the app
helps, but importantly, the preliminary identification is verified by
the community of experts among iNaturalist users. The verified
("Research Grade") data from the platform are also shared with a global
collection of biodiversity data maintained by GBIF ([Global Biodiversity
Information Facility](https://www.gbif.org/)), making the data
accessible to biodiversity researchers. (Also see our  collaboration
with GBIF for the [Vectors of Human
Disease](https://gigabytejournal.com/articles/series/GIGABYTE_SERIES_0002)
series, and read the blog post
[here](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/vector-borne-diseases-series/)
).

## Taioba tortelli and jaboticaba jam

Thus, iNaturalist not only helps to identify species for your own
pleasure, but links public observations, expert identifiers and the
scientific community. As the authors explain in the *GigaByte* paper and
their accompanying *GigaScience* commentary, the data collected by
citizen scientists has great re-use potential. Beyond the obvious
benefit of mapping the biodiversity of fruit bearing plants,
collaborating with citizens also builds connections between scientists
and wider society; even inspiring food recipes based on fruit from
"urban orchards", including delicacies such as "taioba  tortelli" based
on *Xanthosoma taioba* or "jaboticaba jam", made from *Plinia
peruviana*.

::: {#attachment_5681 .wp-caption .aligncenter style="width: 761px"}
![Citizen Science inspired design from Pomar
Urbano](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Unbenannt-e1709303013222.jpg){.wp-image-5681
loading="lazy" decoding="async"
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5681" width="751" height="349"
srcset="http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Unbenannt-e1709303013222.jpg 975w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Unbenannt-e1709303013222-300x139.jpg 300w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Unbenannt-e1709303013222-768x357.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 751px) 100vw, 751px"}

*Design inspired by Pomar Urbano. (From Fig. 6 in [Soares et
al](https://gigabytejournal.com/articles/107).)*
:::

Even the creative industry got on board: A group of Fashion Design
students at *Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo* created a
porcelain cup featuring the Night Blooming Cactus flower (*Epiphyllum
oxypetalum*) and Luciana Mendonça, a student of Interior Design, made a
tablecloth print inspired by the flower of the guava tree, *Psidium
guajava.*

And in the science department, the citizen-collected data can be used
for machine learning applications that deal with recognizing fruit from
images.

## Mobilizing biodiversity data with GigaByte

At *GigaScience Press*, we are keen supporters of  community projects 
--  remember for example our crowdfunded [Bauhinia
project](http://bauhiniagenome.hk/about/the-project/) to sequence Hong
Kong's emblematic species or the publication of the [crowd-funded genome
of the Puerto Rican parrot *Amazona
vittata*](https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-217X-1-14). With our innovative
*GigaByte* journal and our associated database GigaDB we are making it
easier to share and mobilize the results of Citizen Science such as
*Pomar Urbano*.  For a *GigaByte* paper to be publishable, the project
doesn't need to yield "final answers" to  scientific questions, which is
often beyond the scope of a data collection with citizens. And our
option for multi-lingual articles helps to make the scientific output
accessible to the local community.

Learn more about our efforts to mobilize biodiversity data, and how they
are in line with the [UNESCO Recommendation on Open
Science](https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science/about), by watching this
presentation of our Editor-in-Chief Scott Edmunds:

 

 

## **References:**

Filipi Miranda Soares, Luís Ferreira Pires, Maria Carolina Garcia, Lidio
Coradin, Natalia Pirani Ghilardi-Lopes, Rubens Rangel Silva et al.:
**Citizen science data on urban forageable plants: a case study in
Brazil**, Gigabyte, 2024  <https://doi.org/10.46471/gigabyte.107>

Filipi Miranda Soares, Luís Ferreira Pires, Maria Carolina Garcia, Lidio
Coradin, Natalia Pirani Ghilardi-Lopes, Rubens Rangel Silva et al.:
**Leveraging citizen science for monitoring urban forageable plants**
GigaScience giae007, <https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giae007>

Filipi Miranda Soares, Luís Ferreira Pires, Maria Carolina Garcia, Lidio
Coradin, Natalia Pirani Ghilardi-Lopes, Rubens Rangel Silva et al.:
**Supporting data for "Citizen Science Data on Urban Forageable Plants:
A Case Study in Brazil**" GigaScience Database, 2024
<http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/102499>

**Vectors of Human Disease ** (GigaByte thematic series)
<https://doi.org/10.46471/GIGABYTE_SERIES_0002>

O'Brien SJ. **Genome empowerment for the Puerto Rican parrot -- Amazona
vittata**. GigaScience. 2012;1(1):13.
<https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-217X-1-13>

Corey T. Callaghan ,Thomas Mesaglio ,John S. Ascher,Thomas M.
Brooks,Analyn A. Cabras,Mark Chandler et al. **The benefits of
contributing to the citizen science platform iNaturalist as an
identifier** PLOS Biology <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001843>

Shuang Jiang, Haishan An, Fangjie Xu, Xueying Zhang, **Chromosome-level
genome assembly and annotation of the loquat (Eriobotrya japonica)
genome**, GigaScience giaa015,
<https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giaa015>

**UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science**
<https://doi.org/10.54677/MNMH8546>

 

 

 

 

 

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<strong>
 Few countries have a biodiversity that’s comparable to Brazil’s, including plant-based food sources that are little known elsewhere.  Even in big cities you may pick all kinds of fruit directly from the tree, which can be both tasty and also interesting for the botanist. The Citizen Science project “Pomar Urbano” collects data on urban fruit-bearing plant in Brazilian cities.
</strong>

Rogue Scholar Posts

Citizen Scientists can see the wood for the trees