Finding nature in the city – over 1500 species in 24 hours of searching, with a final tally of 1799 species!
2010 was International Year of Biodiversity, and has the tag line "biodiversity is life; biodiversity is our life". BioBlitz 2010, involving more than 50 biologists from Landcare Research , Auckland Museum and other agencies, took place in Auckland Domain during April.
It was the second time that a BioBlitz has been conducted in the Auckland Domain, but the first time that base-camp has actually been
inside the Museum. The last event in 2005 found over 1500 species in the 24 hour period, and 1776 species as last minute finds were later identified. Tthis time we recorded 1521 species but subsequent identifications of last minute finds took the total to 1799 species. The tallies are remarkably similar albeit the species lists are not exactly the same.
Setting up started at 7am on Saturday, with everything ready-to-go for the opening at 10am. The Hon Dr Wayne Mapp did the honours with a short speech, and then everyone worked through (with a few hours sleep) until official closing at 3pm on Sunday.
‘Base camp’ is where much of the identifications are made and all species recorded, and had a fine array of microscopes, display specimens, live spiders, leaf litter, fresh water fish and invertebrates, and interesting posters. The Atrium had wireless internet access so scientists had access to the databases they needed. While most
scientists worked off laptops, larger plasma screens faced the public visitors. This meant people could watch how databases were interrogated, discuss information resources available on the web, and watch on-line displays of interesting finds, beautiful photographs, and night-video footage of possums and rats. Other large screens displayed graphs of the overall species tally and taxa sub-tallies, updated at regular interval.
The Auckland Museum was very gracious about keeping the Atrium open for the BioBlitz ‘base camp’ out of hours and for sharing their staffroom upstairs with such an influx of ‘red shirts’ wanting food and drink …fuel to stay awake and keep on going. ‘Zekes Serious Coffee’ has been a long-time supporter of BioBlitz providing ample supplies of freshly roasted and freshly ground coffee beans
and coffee plungers. Needless to say, at 5am the coffee plungers were first to get some seriously strong attention. Armed with coffee, we made the most of some quiet time to progress identifications, update the nzBioBlitz blog and send off a raft of Tweets to Twitter.
As Sunday wore on, the pace of identifications picked up with the final thrust taking the tally to over 1500 species by closing time at 3pm. The official closing was assisted by several kids who announced the tallies for various groups of organisms (opening their envelopes Oscar award-style except they did thank their agents, directors, producers, friends and family, dog, cat and everyone else no-one cares about).
Then it was all over. And thanks to a massive cooperative packing-up effort, everything was down and packed away into vehicles by 5pm.
The next BioBlitz (2012) will be in the Auckland Botanic Gardens and Totara Park in Manurewa.
Acknowledgements
The principal organizers of this event were Landcare Research and Auckland Museum; Auckland Regional Council and DOC were also involved. ARC and the Lion Foundation provided direct financial sponsorship, without which BioBlitz would not have been possible. Forest and Bird Society, Ornithological Society, the Botanical Society, University of Auckland, Unitech, Plant and Food Research, Oratia Native Plant Nursery, MAF and WaiCare also participated. We also welcomed observers from the University of the South Pacific’s Regional Herbarium and BioNet International’s Pacific Loop.