For the new app version, usability and accessibility have also been improved. For example, plant finds can now be created without network reception and later determined automatically. In addition, a new game-like element has been introduced: Users can collect badges for documenting certain plant groups. In this way, they not only enjoy collecting plants themselves over a long period of time, they also strengthen awareness of biodiversity in their environment. At the same time, the app thus offers an incentive to document species or other plant groups that are already known, which provides scientists with important data.
Another new feature is the ability to use Flora Incognita to carry out citizen science projects. This allows laypeople to track the distribution of certain invasive species in a region, map special trees, or document the diversity of plant species on school grounds, for example. The project managers regularly receive the anonymized observation data from such initiatives for scientific and conservation evaluation.
But it is not only the technology of the Flora-Incognita app that has improved. The data basis and the deposited information have also been expanded. Citizen scientists, i.e. interested laypersons, have also contributed to this. Using the "Flora Capture" app, which was specially developed for the scientific documentation of plants, thousands of images from specific perspectives have already been transmitted, which have contributed to a significant improvement in the identification accuracy of the German flora, especially critical plant groups such as sweet grasses. Students from the University of Applied Sciences in Erfurt participated in the recording of thousands of trees, so that identification is now also possible in winter on the basis of bud images. Further significant data for the expansion of the determinable species were provided by the authors of the work "African Plants - A Photo Guide", and staff members of the Geisenheim University of Applied Sciences and the Dresden University of Applied Sciences.
