By definition, a naturalist is a person who studies nature and the natural history of plants and or animals. Naturalists do their work by directly observing organisms and in their natural habitats. In my opinion, Charles Darwin, John Muir, Jane Goodall, and Sir David Attenborough have been the most well known naturalists over the past few hundred years.
Professional naturalists typically report their observations in journals like The American Naturalist, Nature, or the Journal of Natural History. The professionals also often publish books for science oriented lay-folks, and make or appear in documentaries or nature shows.
Avocational, or community naturalists are unlikely to have their work published directly in science journals, but they can help the professionals by acting as data collectors as long as they report the data out to reputable, peer reviewed websites like eBird, Pl@ntnet, or iNaturalist.
These sites act as data aggregators. They accept submissions from community naturalists, engage with trained reviewers to check the accuracy of the submissions, and then publish the findings in an easy to access, worldwide, searchable database.
If, for instance, someone was looking for info on a relatively rare flowering plant like Kelseya uniflora, they could log in to iNaturalist and see that there have been 79 verified, or research grade, sightings made of this plant anywhere in the world.
If a botanist wanted to study this plant, they could easily determine location, elevation, growth habit, flowering season, etc. without leaving their desk. Twenty-five years ago*, this degree of freely accessible, peer reviewed data was probably unavailable.
In this way community naturalists can play a role in professional naturalists work. They can be a bridge helping professionals gather information about what is being seen, where, and when.
My high school biology teacher told me a scientist is simply someone who does experiments, observes the results, and reports the results out so others can learn. A community naturalist, then, is sort of scientist who spends time in nature, documents what they see, and publishes it where others can see it.
My “broad brush” definition of a naturalist can include avocational naturalists as long as they are documenting and publishing their findings. Seeing a moose along the trail is one thing, photographing and posting it to iNaturalist, or even just Instagram and Facebook, transforms the act of seeing into an act of contribution.
To my way of thinking, that’s a naturalist.
* eBird went live and accepted their first public submission May 8, 2022.