Diario del proyecto Long Point BioBlitz 2022

01 de junio de 2023

Bioblitz Long Point in 2023!

The 2022 Long Point Bioblitz, coordinated by BiodiversityWorks and The Trustees of Reservations, was a great success and a lot of fun. We ended up documenting about 315 species, including a first Vineyard record of the Kalmia miner bee, Andrena kalmiae. From 5:00 pm Friday, June 16, 2023, through 5:00 pm Saturday, June 17, 2023, we're going to do it again! We hope to see many 2022 participants returning to the field to help us beat last year's species count.

Interested? Block out some time on those days on your calendar. (Keep in mind that there will be mothing event on the evening of June 16.) Plan on as much or as little time as you want; you'll be able to join a team led by an expert naturalist, or else participate on your own just by visiting Long Point during the event and photographing what you find. In either case, we'll collect data by uploading observations into iNaturalist, so make sure you have an account and know how to submit data.

If you'll be able to help us, please join the project we've set up for the Bioblitz. I'll be using that to communicate with participants, and it'll be the place to view results after the event. The project name is "Long Point Bioblitz 2023," and the URL for it is this:

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/long-point-bioblitz-2023

Also, please take a moment to register for the event by filling out the Google form at this address. I'll use these forms to produce an email list to distribute schedules, directions, and other information prior to the event:

https://forms.gle/rr48LSKdiqJuT3x46

You can always reach me with questions at mpelikan@biodiversityworksmv.org. Thanks for participating in 2022, and I hope you can join us again in June 2023!

Publicado el junio 1, 2023 02:44 TARDE por mpelikan mpelikan | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

12 de enero de 2023

Mapping Adjustment

Just a quick note to mention that I've replaced the polygon we used to define the area for our June 2022 Long Point bioblitz. The original polygon was hand-drawn and necessarily approximate; the replacement polygon was provided by The Trustees, extracted from their GIS system and representing the definitive legal boundaries of Long Point Wildlife Refuge. This change was made in association with an effort by The Trustees to set up an iNat project to collect and aggregate observations from all of their properties (123 of them!) across Massachusetts. Keeping the original bioblitz polygon would have risked confusion in the future, since there would then be two slightly different polygons with "Long Point Wildlife Refuge" in their names.

In making the adjustment, we lost a few observations from the June 2022 bioblitz, probably because I had attempted to "buffer" the property outline to make sure we didn't lose any observations from close to the refuge boundaries. But because we will use the new TTOR boundary for any future bioblitzes at this property, results will be comparable across years.

The Trustees hope to launch the "umbrella project" for their properties this spring sometime. It will presumably sweep in all the observations currently in our 2022 Long Point bioblitz project, along with other records, existing and future, for all Trustees properties on the Vineyard and statewide. I'd encourage everyone to visit Trustees properties often and iNat what you find - we can all help this important conservation organization work toward a solid catalog of the wildlife occurring on the lands they protect and manage.

Publicado el enero 12, 2023 02:40 TARDE por mpelikan mpelikan | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

24 de octubre de 2022

Long Point Bioliblitz documents a new bee species for the Vineyard

One of the coolest things about iNaturalist is that an observation is never completely finalized: the information it contains remains available indefinitely, always ready for someone to take another look and maybe come to a different conclusion.

This just happened with a bee I photographed (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/122399891) in the Middle Cove Frost Bottom during the June 2022 Long Point Bioblitz. An expert who has been very generous in helping me with bee identification recently took a look at the bee, had a hunch about its identity, and tagged another expert. The conclusion based on their collective knowledge was that the bee, which I had been able to identify only to the genus level, was Andrena kalmiae.

As its name suggests, A. kalmiae associates closely with Kalmia species, including Kalmia angustifolia, or sheep laurel, which is a common shrub in parts of Martha's Vineyard. But Andrena kalmia appears to be far from common: while it reportedly ranges from Nova Scotia to North Carolina, iNaturalist contains only six observations of it; there aren't any records at all of it in Bugguide.net; and a recent "Checklist of the Bees of Massachusetts" by Michael Veit, John Ascher, Joan Milam, Fred Morrison, and Paul Goldstein shows no records for it from Dukes County. So the individual photographed during the Long Point Bioblitz appears to represent a first Martha's Vineyard record. And it is, of course, one more species for our Bioblitz total, more than four months after the event itself took place.

The episode is a reminder that even major studies, like the magisterial 2010-2011 Vineyard bee survey coordinated by Paul Goldstein, almost invariably miss things, leaving discoveries to be made by anyone with a little luck and some time to spend in the field. Moreover, iNaturalist, with its ability to bring expert knowledge to bear where it is needed, and Bioblitzes, with the volume of talent they deploy and the wealth of observations they produce, are incredibly effective tools to encourage and document those discoveries.

--Matt

Publicado el octubre 24, 2022 05:04 TARDE por mpelikan mpelikan | 1 comentario | Deja un comentario

24 de junio de 2022

Species Count Still Growing

Some delayed contributions to iNaturalist have increased the species count for this bioblitz to 311! If anyone else still has observations to submit, please upload them sooner rather than later so we can confirm IDs and add them to our tally.

-Matt

Publicado el junio 24, 2022 10:31 MAÑANA por mpelikan mpelikan | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

19 de junio de 2022

Thanks!

Thanks to everybody who was involved in making our first Vineyard bioblitz a success! The species count will be an evolving process, but at present, counting iNat records and what I anticipate for bird records in eBird, we will probably come out around 300 species for the day. An impressive total!

Particular thanks to The Trustees of Reservations for hosting the event and running the aquatic seining program; to our group leaders -- Luanne Johnson, Pete Gilmore, Shea Fee, Margaret Curtin, and Greg Palermo -- for contributing their time and expertise; to Sammi Chaves for her logistical support and energetic field work; and to the participants who brought their interest and enthusiasm to the project. The species total included several first iNat records for the Vineyard, and in general the work everybody put in made a real contribution to the study of nature on Martha's Vineyard.

As always, my personal day in the field left me in awe of the habitats and biodiversity of our little island.

Let's do it again!

Publicado el junio 19, 2022 09:55 TARDE por mpelikan mpelikan | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

15 de junio de 2022

Getting Close!

The event is just a couple of days away! I'll be sending out an information sheet to all team leaders, organizational staff, and registered participants later today. The weather is looking good, and it appears that we'll have a small but dedicated crowd.

Most of you are already experienced iNat users, but if you're relatively new to the platform, it'd be a good idea to make sure you are familiar with the basics of iNaturalist (how to create and upload observations in the phone app; how to log in, add observations, and view projects on the full website). You might also practice with your camera or smart phone camera, experimenting with settings to get the best possible images of small subjects. When photographing a subject for iNaturalist, it's a good idea to take multiple photographs; having more than one angle on a subject will make an identification more likely. There is rarely any point in uploading photos that are badly blurred, show only a very small image of the subject, or are otherwise deficient. Note the "zoom" feature on most smart phones is a bit of a boondoggle: it's a "digital" zoom, not an "optical" zoom. So you tend to end up with a large but blurry and pixellated image. The key to successful iNat photography is usually getting close to your subject and using only moderate zoom.

We will be running a moth sheet or two at the Long Point winter parking lot on Friday night, setting up around 8:00 and turning the lights on when it gets dark. This is a first for me; I have no idea how effective our equipment will be at attracting insects, nor do I have much sense of what we might find. But it'll be a fun experiment! You're invited - bring insect repellent, a head lamp, and your phone or camera to take photos of whatever shows up.

Publicado el junio 15, 2022 01:56 TARDE por mpelikan mpelikan | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

28 de mayo de 2022

Welcome!

Thanks for your interest in this event, the first Bioblitz to be organized by the Martha's Vineyard Atlas of Life. With our partner organization, The Trustees of Reservations, we'll be surveying wildlife at Long Point Wildlife Refuge during the 24-hour period between 5:00 p.m. June 17, 2022, and 5:00 p.m. June 18, 2022. Teams of observers will be led by local wildlife experts. This project is also configured so that observations made at Long Point during the Bioblitz period will automatically be included in our results. The Trustees will be running family-friendly, drop-in surveys of aquatic life on the refuge shorelines. As plans develop, we hope to add more components: bat detector surveys, non-lethal mammal trapping, and a mothing event are among the possibilities. Please join the project to receive news, and we hope you will contribute to this fun "citizen science" event!

Publicado el mayo 28, 2022 12:47 TARDE por mpelikan mpelikan | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

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