Tequesta, Florida: On Saturday, September 7th, Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) hosted its first Back-to-School Bioblitz at Coral Cove Park in Tequesta, FL.
What is a Bioblitz? A Bioblitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. At a Bioblitz, community members work together to get a snapshot of an area’s biodiversity, or variety of life in that ecosystem. These events can happen in an area as small as a backyard or as large as a country!
Despite high water turbidity and intense heat, the Bioblitz event had an amazing turnout. Fifty community members took on the role of citizen scientist to help us identify various plant and animal species among the intertidal and coastal dune ecosystems. In addition, almost every participant grabbed one of our beach clean-up bags and took part in the “Trash-blitz” beach clean-up during their exploration!
“Learning how to identify different species within an ecosystem builds a connection between you and the environment for future visits,” said STEM Education Coordinator, Lindsay French. “It was incredible to see so many citizen scientists participate in our first Bioblitz and we look forward to next year’s participation!”
This event resulted in LMC’s iNaturalist Bioblitz event page receiving 62 species photo submissions, representing over 40 identified species. Since then, many submitted photos have received “Research Grade” credit through iNaturalist by receiving ID verification from scientists around the world! Check out the results of LMC’s first event here: LMC Back-to-School Bioblitz