BioBlitzs

Rocky Mountain Sustainability and Science Network teamed up with

National Geographic to conduct Bioblitzs in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and

Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico to celebrate the 100th anniversary

of the National Park Service.

A BioBlitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as

many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time.

At a BioBlitz, scientists, families, students, teachers, and other community

members work together to get a snapshot of an area’s biodiversity.

Smartphone technologies and apps such as iNaturalist make collecting

photographs and biological information about living things easy as part of

a BioBlitz. High quality data uploaded to iNaturalist become

used by scientists and policy makers around the world.

RMSSN students acted as digital ambassadors guiding citizen volunteers

on how to utilitize inaturalist in the field.

RESULTS :

HAWAII - hosted more than 6,000 people including more than 850 school-aged

children.

22 new species were added to the park’s species list,

and over 73 threatened species were observed,

including the nene and Kamehameha butterfly.

Seventeen new documentations of fungi were also reported, more than double what the park already had documented.

Additional results include an initial species count of 416 species and 1,535 observations recorded during the two-day event.

BANDELIER -