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Announcing the First Annual Blogger Bioblitz

By voltagegate on March 26, 2007.

UPDATES: Part I, Part II

In honor of National Wildlife Week, April 21 - 29, I am inviting bloggers from all walks to participate in the First Annual Blogger Bioblitz, where bloggers from across the world will choose a wild or not-so-wild area and find how many of each different species - plant, animal, fungi and anything in between - live in a certain area within a certain time.

Pick a neat little area that you are relatively familiar with and is small enough that you or the group can handle - a small thicket, a pond, a section of stream, or even your backyard - and bring along some taxonomic keys or an Audubon guide, or if you're lucky enough, an expert in local flora and fauna. Set a time limit. Try to identify the different species of organisms that you find as well as the number of each species that you find. Take pictures if you have a digital camera, compile your numbers, make observations, set up your post however you wish as long as you include your numbers in a digestible fashion (I'll have more details on that later) - then submit it to me and I'll include it on the list. We will also be tallying total numbers of each species found, and then a grand total. There has also been talk of coding an interactive Google Map with distribution information, geotagging regions with a blogger's submitted information.

This is not meant to be a contest, nor is meant to be a hard source of taxonomic data. It is meant to be a fun little excursion to highlight little pockets of biodiversity across the world. I should have a 160x160 button available for distribution in a couple days.

This event was inspired by the National Wildlife Federation's own project, the Wildlife Watch. They will be posting a downloadable list of springtime critters in the near future that may be of use.

So far we have the following participants:

Contact me at thevoltagegate [at] gmail.com or leave a comment on this thread with your e-mail address if you'd like to be added to the list. Participants will be kept informed by mailing lists. I will pass on more info as it becomes available.

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Hopefully I'll be able to get the sequence analysis on my 8 bacterial isolates - some of which are no doubt duplicates - done by next week, when the lab report's due...

Sadly, the majority of life will go undocumented unless you plan to make microscope slides of every square inch of soil or do some metagenomics. It would be cool if someone with a good understanding of microscopic life could take a stab at the non-macro-dioversity.

Yeah, I agree. I'm tempted to take some water/soil samples myself, but time is a bit of a constraint. I would love some volunteers...

Hi there. I think my class and I will also be participating in this event as well. But I have a question in regards to what we count. Do we count organisms that were attracted to the area of our choice or do we count any organism. For instance, if we go to a park, do we count the domesticated ducks(they were put there for our amusement) as well, or do we only count in the "wild" organisms that were attracted to the park (i.e. wild ducks, butterflies, etc.). Thanks.

As a participant with the ATBI that's going on in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, BioBlitz's are cool!

It's not exactly a BioBlitz, but that's the week of the Annual Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Smoky Mountains, I can keep a record of the flowering plants (and what ferns and mosses that I know) as I lead walks in the park on my livejournal ...

http://florentinescot.livejournal.com

Jim:

I suppose there's a thin line, but for the most part I would leave the domesticated animals out of the count. But, there could be sound, ecological reasons for keeping them in the count...

It's up to you.

Susan: Sounds like a viable count to me. Welcome!

Be sure you both register at the Google Group:

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-bioblitz

Great idea, Jeremy. I've written a piece about it, joined the Google Group, and plan on using this as a dry run for an ongoing project.

Great idea! I'll think I'll add the twist of recommending field guides because my new blog's about nature books. Let me know if anyone has favorites that I should mention. Thanks!

Count me in! This will be a great project for me to do with my son, and I can count it as school (we homeschool). We'll be surveying our backyard and some open space behind our home in Contra Costa County, California.

It would be cool if someone with a good understanding of microscopic life could take a stab at the non-macro-dioversity.
I don't know if I count as having a "good understanding" (it depends on precisely where you set the boundaries of "good") being a mere undergraduate and all, but I'm interested in giving it a try.
The catch is, the one location I expect to have much useful information on during this session is kind of "different" from what's probably being sought here.
Arguably, I'm investigating microbial diversity somewhere around here but I'm doing it from Southeastern Idaho at the moment.
If "wild bacteria and yeasts remaining alive in a bottle of imported Belgian lambic ale" counts for this project, count me in. (I figure it may not - my sample is limited to "organisms surviving in a viable state in a bottle of imported lambic which are not obligate aerobes" Even if it doesn't count, I'm doing it anyway, so if anyone is interested please feel free to follow along at my blog ("The Big Room")).
Hopefully I'll be able to get the sequence analysis on my 8 bacterial isolates - some of which are no doubt duplicates - done by next week, when the lab report's due...

What a good idea--does "first annual" really mean you'll do this next year, too? If so, I'd give it a try, just to see what I can see!