Results for the 2021 Fall Socially Distant BioBlitz!

The urban ecosystem is alive. We daily see habitat loss close to our own backyards, but as Jeff Goldblum says, “Life finds a way.” In the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, biodiversity is well worthy of celebrating. On September 5 – 11, 2021, we held the second annual “Fall Socially Distant BioBlitz,” and once again, we saw tens of thousands of iNaturalist observations of thousands of species from thousands of participants! In other words, it was a great success! We can also compare the results this year to last year – there are some noticeable differences.

Before we get into the results, let’s talk about relevancy. What good is this information and does it mean anything for conservation, education, or habitat management? When a group of folks dedicate time, energy, and knowledge to documenting the organisms that exist here in the city, we can translate this into meaningful change. First of all, we personally change as we learn. Even if it’s learning the name of one of the pesky plants that keeps getting in our flower garden, or an insect noticed for the first time, we gain knowledge and this can be shared with others. Next, we can use this to find out places where biodiversity thrives. There are some areas in DFW that are overflowing with wildlife habitat, and we’ve got the data to show it! Finally, we can collectively convince land managers (city council, park board, HOA’s) that nature matters to a growing amount of people in DFW. It’s well worthy to conserve and manage for nature and this growing constituency of naturalists. The results from this socially distant bioblitz add imperial evidence to this cause. Let’s use this!

So, here are some numbers from this year:
27,401 iNaturalist observations of 2325 Species from 1237 observers identified or verified by 737 others (these numbers may fluctuate a bit as more upload or ID).
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fall-socially-distant-bioblitz-dfw-urban-ecosystem-2021
Last year, here are the numbers for the week:
35,900 iNat observations of 2648 species from 1243 observers identified or verified by 1199 others.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fall-socially-distant-bioblitz-dfw-urban-ecosystem

You may notice that we didn’t get quite as many observations or species, but the participation level was magnificent! Over 1200 naturalists and nature enthusiasts went outside to make observations this week. Let’s celebrate that!

This year, here were the 10 most observed species:
Gulf fritillary, American bumble bee, cedar elm, giant ragweed, yellow garden spider, eastern pondhawk, late boneset, poison ivy, prairie false foxglove, and sugar hackberry.
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fall-socially-distant-bioblitz-dfw-urban-ecosystem-2021?tab=species
Last year, we didn’t document nearly as many gulf fritillaries (there were the 203rd most documented species!) nor prairie false foxgloves (the 55th most documented species). There were some other fluctuations in the top species as well. Take a look at last year’s top species: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/fall-socially-distant-bioblitz-dfw-urban-ecosystem?tab=species

This year was filled with some crazy cool finds! First of all, there were some daily challenges that several people completed. If you did, way to go! Hopefully they were sufficiently challenging, and the challenges provided some extra incentive to go out and explore. Here are a few of the completed daily challenges:

5 Sep: Raccoons have some really great tracks: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93757490

6 Sep: Spore prints – for some mushrooms, it’s good to leave them for a bit on a white sheet of paper to see the color of the spores: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94153460
7 Sep: All spiders have multiple eyes and they’re all somewhat different! Here’s a really cool starbellied orbweaver: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94040918
8 Sep: Green briar name (Smilax): “Smilax gets its name from the Greek myth of Krokus and the nymph Smilax. The story is varied, but here’s one version: Their love affair was tragic and unfulfilled because mortals and nymph weren’t allowed to love each other. For that indiscretion, the man, Krokus, was turned into the saffron crocus by the goddess Artemis (because she, too, was having an affair with Krokus but as a goddess that was okay). Smilax, a woodland nymph, was so heartbroken over Krokus’ reduction down to a flower that Artemis took godly pity on her and turned Smilax into a brambly vine so she and Krokus could forever entwine themselves.” https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93878242
9 Sep: I didn’t realize that pigeons have the ability to smell! Vultures and gulls do, but did you know that pigeons do as well?!? https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94261719
10 Sep: Finding a purple insect is hard! But several still did. Here’s a pipevine swallowtail that has lots of the primary colors as well: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94600186
11 Sep: I love seeing the roots of invasive species. One of the vilest, Bermuda grass, is seen with some roots here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94518668

Here are just a few of the other observations that I marked as being particularly interesting:

Texas wasp moth: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93749922
Brown anole - an invasive species to keep an eye on! These do outcompete the native green anoles: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93756122
Feather legged spider is nonvenomous: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93773289
Mourning warbler window strike project: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93868016
Egg parasitoid: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/93896747
Beezlebub bee-killer - this insect has been making a ‘move’ to further north – I’d only seen it down in the hill country in the past, but they’re becoming a bit more common here in DFW: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94014169
Strepsiptera – twisted wing flies that are parasites of paper wasps: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94256963
Chestnut-sided warbler – a fun migrant: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94518193
Beautiful little moth (skullcap skeletonizer moth): https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94595632
Cicada parasitizing beetle that can lay up to 17,000 eggs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/94340396

I was able to look at around 20k of the observations, and there were so many tremendous ones! I learned a massive amount, especially from the challenge of looking up the scientific names and their meanings. There were so many cool observations that were new to me too! I love seeing all of these – it inspires me to continue to explore even at the little local parks.

Speaking of which, there are two ongoing bioblitzes! One in the City of Fort Worth Parks (https://www.fortworthtexas.gov/news/2021/08/PARD-Pollinators) and another in the City of Dallas Parks (https://www.dallasparks.org/476/Urban-Biologist)! Do try to spend some time making some observations at these city parks!

Also, mark your calendars for next year’s City Nature Challenge: April 29 – May 2. We’ll do another ‘socially distant bioblitz’ next fall too: September 4 – 10.

Overall, hopefully you were able to engage with the outdoors during this week… You learned the names of some of your natural neighbors… You daily celebrate the nature that exists all around us. Keep it up!

If you ever have any questions or concerns, please let me know! Hope to see more of your observations on iNaturalist!

Sam Kieschnick
Urban Wildlife Biologist, DFW
Texas Parks and Wildlife
sam.kieschnick@tpwd.texas.gov
@sambiology on iNaturalist
214 215 5605

P.S. Some folks were mentioning that their app was filling up too much space on the phone. One fix for this is to log out and then log back in – this clears your cache and frees up space on your phone. Make sure that you’ve uploaded all observations on your phone before you do this though!
Also, the app is a great tool for collecting data, but you’ve really got to go to the website to get the most out of iNaturalist.

הועלה ב-ספטמבר 18, 2021 01:19 לפנה"צ על ידי sambiology sambiology

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