Hello AppState BioBlitzers and friends! Are you ready for the next round? Join us for the Fall 2023 BioBlitz showdown from Monday, September 25 to Sunday, October 1st. Here's the new project for our fall competition: AppState BioBlitz Fall 2023
Hi all, sorry for the delay in announcing our BioBlitz winners! Final exams sort of got in the way. We struggled to identify a date and time for an awards ceremony and it just seemed the end of the semester was too busy for that, so we are skipping the ceremony this time. However, if you won you can contact Marta to pick up your certificate and prize.
We had a blast again with this! Congratulations and thanks to our fellow UNC participants! We had a slow start and UNCG held onto their lead until the weekend, but our students were determined to snatch the win again.
Somewhat belatedly also a huge Welcome to UNCC! They participated as well but didn't tell us, so they are not included in the graphic above but you can check out their results here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/uncc-bioblitz-2023
Good morning everyone! Wow, what a weekend! Our AppState Team went all out on catching up and then some! As of yesterday, we are leading the BioBlitz! UNCG is coming in a strong second after leading for most of the week (I'm sure they are at least a little bit upset with us). UNCW pulled over the 1,000 observation mark with the highest species/observations ratio of all three campuses. Here are the current numbers:
AppState: 2,428 observations, 620 species, 97 observers (100 project members)
UNCG: 2,159 observations, 546 species, 66 observers (77 project members)
UNCW: 1,077, 423 species, 31 observers (44 project members)
The top three observers with the most overall observations uploaded so far are jaajowele at UNCG, iantb at UNCW, and kirnsc at AppState. Great job everyone!
These numbers may still change a bit as people who took pictures with cameras rather than the phone app may still be processing and uploading images. Remember the date that counts is the date the picture was taken, not when it was uploaded to iNaturalist. So if you took pictures but didn't get around to uploading them yet, there's still time to do so and make them count this week.
Another thing that will affect the numbers is identifications and curation for e.g. cultivated species. We got a good start on that already with allenma3 currently leading our list of identifiers.
Identifying species:
If you would like to help with IDs, check out the identification guidelines. We want our data to be as scientifically accurate as possible, so make sure you can independently verify the IDs you're adding (e.g. using field guides, or online sources other than the iNaturalist computer suggestions such as NameThatPlant.net). Computer Vision doesn't always get it right and can only attempt to identify what is in its training set. If you don't know what something is, it's ok to skip the ID and instead wait for someone more knowledgeable to chime in.
Marking things cultivated/not wild:
The goal of the BioBlitz is to record the wildlife on campus, so only wild organisms should count. If something is obviously not wild (e.g. domestic animals, potted plants), they should be marked "captive/cultivated" on the identify page. On the observation pages, you would do this by marking No next to "Organism is wild" near the bottom of the page.
Adding annotations:
Making annotations is another great way to add value to observations. For example, for plants you can add whether they are flowering or fruiting, or for insects whether they are larvae, pupae, or adults. These annotations are searchable and allow researchers to e.g. quickly find all the plants that were in bloom or all the caterpillars observed during this month. This is also often easy to determine even if you are not confident enough to add species IDs.
Marking your favorites:
Last but not least, if you browse the pool of observations and come across some that you think are really cool or have really great pictures, feel free to add a star to fave the observation! This will include it in the set of most popular observations from the BioBlitz and will make sure we don't miss it when we pick contenders for the best picture winners. You can use the filters or search by species to find your favorite taxa and see if anyone made observations of them.
Hi everybody,
last day of our BioBlitz for spring 2023 and AppState is leading this morning! Stunning effort from everyone involved in pulling us ahead yesterday. Nothing quite like a sprint on the finish line, right? Will we be able to stay on the top today? Or will UNCG catch up again? It's looking like another gorgeous spring day out there, but feels a bit more like winter again starting the day with a freeze warning. Bring an extra layer of clothing if you go out this morning.
We have four participants who each made close to or over 200 observations so far with leighalobelia taking the lead. That gets us two of the top 5 observer spots. Leading that list are jaajowele from UNCG with over 400 observations and iantb from UNCW with 350. Collectively, we have over 1,200 species identified across all three universities so far. I'm looking forward to taking a closer look at all that data to see what everybody found and which species seem unique to each campus.
The competition ends at midnight today. Let's get out there one more day and see what else we can find!
Hello AppState BioBlitz Team,
were you awoken by thunder this morning? It's pouring right now where I am! Fortunately, it is supposed to clear up again this afternoon and should stay dry tomorrow for the last day of the BioBlitz. The rain may actually bring on some new observation opportunities after a very dry week. Mosses and liverworts will look particularly lush today, lichens may change color when wet, and the many salamanders we have in the area may come out of hiding. Be prepared for cooler temperatures as this front passes through and bring an extra layer of clothing if you go out later today and tomorrow.
We will have the gate open at the ASU Dark Sky Observatory this afternoon from 1-4 PM (PDF with map and directions - GPS will get you there as well). Feel free to stop by whenever it is convenient for you during that time frame! You can park at the building at the end of the road or anywhere along the road as long as you are not blocking it. There's forest edge habitat to explore, as well as several logging roads that go into the woods.
As of this morning, we have accumulated about 62% of the number of observations and 84% of the number of species we had at this point in the week during our Fall 2022 BioBlitz. Great job everyone considering that our observer numbers this time around are just 56% of the numbers we had in fall! Our top observers right now are kirnsc with 217 observations and nicole_lowder with 142 species. Coming in third are brookesbees for observation numbers and leighalobelia for species count.
We have some catching up to do again today on UNCG. We were slightly ahead in number of species last night, but as of this morning they have pulled ahead of us again. This is going to be a tight race over the weekend! UNCW may be trailing in terms number of observations, but they have a far greater ratio of species to observation count compared to us and UNCG. Current numbers are:
UNCG - 1,941 observations / 516 species
AppState - 1,832 observations / 510 species
UNCW - 849 observations / 350 species
Good morning everyone!
Great job on the AppState BioBlitz so far! We're picking up speed but UNCG seems determined not to let us win this time and pulled ahead again. They are currently at 1,693 observations to our 1,467 followed by UNCW with 753. We are so far at about 41% of the observation count we had in our Fall 2022 BioBlitz week, with about 60% of the number of species we had in fall, so there's still more stuff to find. Let's get out there and look for additional things to observe today and over the weekend!
If you are ready for a change of scenery, we will have the gate open at the ASU Dark Sky Observatory tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon from 1-4 PM. Come on out to explore the woods around the Observatory! The forecast is calling for rain in the morning giving way to a sunny afternoon, so you may want to bring footwear suitable for muddy puddles and wet grass. For driving directions and free tickets for the North Carolina Science Festival's Statewide Star Party in the evening if you are interested, see the DSO website. (No tickets are needed for our afternoon BioBlitz outing! Those are for observing the night sky using the big telescope.)
I received a question about species numbers. Keen observers have noticed that the numbers in the umbrella project with the leaderboard differ from the numbers in the individual university projects. For example, it currently says we have 433 species in the leaderboard, but this project page says 497. What's the difference? Well, it's complicated but essentially the count on the project page includes taxa that have been identified to e.g. genus or family but have not yet been refined to species level IDs. Say, you have two observations, one with an ID of Rosaceae, another with an ID of Rosa multiflora. This counts as two "species" on the project page, even though only one of those IDs is actually at species level and the other is at family. The species counts on the leaderboard only consider observations identified to species. We are currently at 433 with UNCG leading with 466 and UNCW following with 323.
Species numbers can still change a bit as they are based on identifications being added to observations. Not every observation can be narrowed down to a species. Good quality pictures are often needed to clearly identify something. Some tips:
The better quality our observations are, the more likely they will be identifiable to species and the more useful they are going to be to scientific projects!
Hello AppState BioBlitzers!
Awesome job yesterday! It was gorgeous out on the Greenway, where I went to do some observing and met quite a few fellow BioBlitzers. Some students had recruited their families to help them, others were mentioning they had a friendly family competition going on with a sibling at another university. Love the competitive spirit here!
We did manage to just about pull ahead of UNCG in numbers of observations last night, trailing just slightly for numbers of species but they have pulled ahead again as of this morning. It's going to be a tight competition! We are doing great on recruiting participants and leading in terms of people active in the BioBlitz. Here are the leaderboards as of this morning - you can also check for them live at the 2023 Campus Nature Challenge project:
We are just about at the halfway point in the challenge today. There are four more days to go including the weekend. The weather is cooperating nicely so far. Saturday morning is supposed to be rainy with thunderstorms so that might be a good time for those of you who are taking pictures with cameras to sit down and process and upload them to iNaturalist.
Good morning AppState BioBlitzers!
It looks like it's going to be another gorgeous spring day out there today - great weather for making some more observations! Where we stand this morning:
We've climbed to second in numbers of observations just slightly ahead of UNCW, but still trailing behind UNCG. They really got a head start on us this time around! We've recruited a few more active observers (37 for AppState as of this morning, compared to 40 for UNCG), but could use some additional help and up our game in terms of numbers of observations per person involved. Tell all your friends, teachers, classes!
Remember we'll have prices in the end for the most observations made and most species observed. That competition is still wide open. Our most active participants on the morning of day three are nicole_lowder and imlichenlucas sharing the top observer spot with 68 observations each and 52 and 50 species respectively. With the other universities included, the top 4 observer spots are going to three folks from UNCG and one observer at UNCW. Currently topping out the observer leaderboard across all campuses are jaajowele from UNCG with 126 observations of 94 species and iantb from UNCW with 104 of 81 species.
For numbers of species recorded, we are still trailing behind both other universities, so try to find stuff you haven't observed yet to add some more diversity to our species list. Our most observed species so far are golden ragwort (not a surprise - it's blooming everywhere on campus right now), joined by a bunch of introduced/invasive plants (ground ivy, purple deadnettle, garlic mustard, dandelions), our native star chickweed and Christmas fern, and for the animals deer and a water snake that apparently was sunning itself on a rock in Boone Creek and begging to have its picture taken while classes were out there. You can see an overview of what we found on the stats page for the project. Over half of the species we've observed so far are plants, followed by fungi and insects. For the vertebrates, birds are the most common so far.
I received a question about the map. This is based on the official boundaries of AppState properties. I know in some places it doesn't seem to match 100% with trails, fences and other markers on the ground (specifically the Greenway Trail and Greenway Connector right at Clawson-Burnley Park weave in and out of AppState property), but we're stuck with the official boundary map provided by the university. If your observations fall outside, they won't count, so check the map to see what areas are included. There are several AppState properties that are still "blank" so far this spring and could make great targets for a visit: There are just a few observations so far at Payne Branch Park and the old Watauga Highschool property (105 Lot), and Camp Broadstone doesn't have anything at all yet.
We are doing great in terms of observing true biodiversity and not recreating an inventory of landscaping plants! Last fall, we had a large number of observations of planted stuff around campus but this spring people are really avoiding those and finding all the wild things between them. Great job on that everyone!
Okay, great second day, we're catching up to them. Remember the main thing that counts is number of species, but having a lot of observations and different observers is nice too.
If you want to see the "live leaderboard", go to this page: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2023-campus-nature-challenge
Happy BioBlitzing and keep up the good work!
Marta
If you just joined the project, welcome to the team! We've got some stiff competition this time around, so we can certainly need your help! It looks like UNCG learned a few things from us last fall and got off to a great start taking the lead for now. AppState was a bit slow getting this going and trailing behind both UNCG and UNCW yesterday. Can we turn this around today? We're off to day 2 of our campus BioBlitz and it looks like another gorgeous sunny spring day out there! So grab your phones and cameras and see what biodiversity you can find! So far, we have reached the 200 observations and 100 species markers. Let's see if we can kick this up a bit!
A few tips and reminders:
The main purpose of this competition is to collect biodiversity data for our campuses. This citizen science data may be pulled into GBIF and other databases to be used by researchers worldwide to e.g. investigate species ranges, diversity etc. Therefore, it's important to make it as accurate as possible. For better science!
