Project Clearinghouse

UCSC Bioblitz

Sustainability Problem and Proposed Solution: 

The earth is currently in the middle of its sixth major wave of extinction and the loss of biodiversity has been recognized as a major environmental issue. Coming to the local level, the UCSC campus is quite biodiverse, and several species have disappeared in the past 50 years. Our project will help document the campus’s biodiversity, creating a record that will inform current and future management, and will also provide an educational experience for many people.

Jump to: Contact | Project Description | Funding Sources | Metrics for Success | Results
Project Categories: 
Land, Habitat, Watershed
Awareness, Education & Engagement
Project Status: 
In Progress
Project End Date: 
04/30/2016
Campus Organization: 
Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History
UCSC Campus Natural Reserve
Affiliated Department, Unit or College: 
UCSC Natural Reserves, Kenneth S Norris Center for Natural History
Project Location: 
On campus

Arboretum
Ken Norris Center
All around campus natural lands


Stakeholder Contacts: 
Contact NameEmail AddressContact NumberDepartment
Alex Jones
asjones@ucsc.edu
459-4971
UCSC Natural Reserves
Funding Sources: 
UCSC Sustainability Office

Project Description: 

During Alumni Weekend 2016, staff from the UCSC Natural Reserves, Younger Lagoon Reserve, Ken Norris Center for Natural History, the California Academy of Sciences, legions of enthusiastic UCSC students & alumni, and members of the Santa Cruz community will come together for a full day exploring and documenting our campus's incredible biodiversity. (We also may work with Arboretum staff and California Naturalist Program students). A BioBlitz is a community event that brings together a wide variety of people to rapidly inventory the living organisms found in a particular place. UCSC's wide variety of habitats and unique geophysical setting have resulted in a great number of species that call campus home. Participants will choose from one of three shifts---morning (9 am-12:30 pm), afternoon (2 pm- 5:50 pm), and for the adventurous, evening/night (7:30 pm-10:30 pm)---or attend as many as they'd like. We'll be using iNaturalist, a citizen science website and app, to photograph and geographically pinpoint our findings and will come back together at the end of each shift to upload our records, share stories, and help each other with identifications. We hope to grow our campus's species lists, but most importantly celebrate our fellow creatures and each other--this education and outreach event is designed to raise awareness of our campus's biodiversity and empower people that they too can contribute valuable records to the scientific community. Refreshments will be served at the end of each shift when we gather back together. Smartphones or tablets with the free iNaturalist app installed aren't required, but certainly bring them along if you have them. Younger Lagoon Reserve, on our marine science campus at Long Marine Lab, will concurrently host a BioBlitz from 8 am-1 pm. Event details and registration for both events will be available on a forthcoming website. We anticipate having up to 500 people participate in this event.

Metrics for Success: 

--Number of attendees and their affiliation
--Size and accuracy of the citizen science dataset we accumulate

Result Categories: 
Education/Outreach
Data Collection & Analysis
Results: 

We will use the iNaturalist app to gather records of the species we observe; this will contribute to a citizen science dataset for the UCSC campus that already exists on iNaturalist. We will quantify the number of attendees and their affiliation (current student, alumni, faculty, general public, etc.). We consider getting a lot of folks out there a victory, as we value teaching people about their local environment. We hope that will lead to a more informed citizenry capable of attending to the needs of the more-than-human world. Our project's data will be searchable and usable by searching for UCSC Bioblitz on the iNaturalist project page.