IT’S that time of the year again when citizen scientists in the southern hemisphere can head outdoors and start clicking away to record all the interesting fauna and flora they observe, wherever they are.
As the Great Southern Bioblitz enters its fifth year, organisers hope the number of observers will continue to increase as it has in previous years.
Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan from the South African National Biodiversity Institute says this year’s event takes place over four days from September 20-23. After the closing date citizen scientists have two weeks to upload their data onto the iNaturalist platform.
“A bioblitz is basically a scientific survey where you’re collecting site-specific data at a rapid pace,” she said.
“You just go out in nature during the four-day period and record whatever you see, be it a plant, a feather, a bird’s nest, an egg, a dead species, fungi and then take good quality photos ‒ using your mobile phone is fine ‒and upload those onto iNaturalist.”
iNaturalist is an online, biodiversity-focused, citizen science platform and app. Its main goal is to create a nature-based social network where like-minded users can share photos of interesting organisms.
According to Parbhoo Mohan, 12 countries and 39 regions on the continent have already signed up for next month’s event.
Last year 7 238 participants from 203 cities and regions registered to observe and record their biodiversity.
The Great Southern Bioblitz was established by a group of bioblitz enthusiasts in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
At the time 12 countries and more than 150 Local Government Areas (LGAs) participated and added more than 91 000 observations throughout the Southern Hemisphere.
“For the Great Southern Bioblitz, we want people to go out and collect stuff in protected areas or in soon-to-be protected areas or farmlands. For the Great Southern Bioblitz, as much as it’s competitive and you’re counting the number of observations and species per city, we are also looking at areas. So, it’s much more in-depth surveying and looking at our protected areas more than what’s growing in your immediate vicinity,” said Parbhoo Mohan.
Last year 231 040 observations of 26 062 species were made, including 1 307 species of conservation concern. The most-observed species was the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera).
Every year the month in which the Bioblitz occurs changes so cities have an opportunity to showcase or survey their biodiversity in their peak spring, said Parbhoo Mohan.
“For example, in the Cape or on the west coast of the country they’ve had rain so their peak time is September, and they’re capturing a lot of stuff. The east coast is in the summer rainfall region, so we’re still waiting for our rain. Last year and the year before, October and November were great years for us to survey in terms of peak flowering,” she said.