[tdwg] Bioblitz at TDWG 2010?

[Jerry Cooper]

I hope somebody can provide me with some answers to questions I have about this prospective Bioblitz.

I’ve been involved in 4 NZ Bioblitz events, and organised the data collection/management for 3 of them.
I’m not putting my hand up to have any input because I suspect the US definition of a Bioblitz is somewhat different to ours.

NZ Bioblitz events are primarily outreach  activities aimed at school involvement.
They are usually urban based, so kids, teachers and parents can get there, and be surprised by what’s living in urban environments.
They have a pseudo competitive element, i.e. 24 hour countdown to see which group of taxonomists gets the biggest list (bugs people usually).
They are NOT ATBIs. The emphasis is on education/outreach and not identification. E.g. taking kids on forays, bug hunting, moth catching etc.
The resulting lists are not especially useful as documentation of biodiversity, e.g. Coleoptera sp1 (green), Coleoptera sp2 (blue). It was even more dubious this year when the bacteriologist turned up and pre-prepared 700 agar plates of soil washes and claimed every slightly differently coloured colony on every plate as a separate taxon and beat the entomologists with 2,000 ‘taxa’ (and they were probably right – but not especially inspiring)

So is this intended to be a mini-ATBI, or a Bioblitz NZ-style? It makes a big different to the supporting data management activity.

Jerry


From: tdwg-bounces at lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-bounces at lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of David Remsen
Sent: Monday, 7 December 2009 10:07 a.m.
To: joel sachs
Cc: tdwg at lists.tdwg.org; dremsen at gbif.org
Subject: Re: [tdwg] Bioblitz at TDWG 2010?

Dear Joel

This is a resend of a mail I may not have sent properly, hence the repeat.

I wanted to add some thoughts on the BioBlitz idea but didn't want to clutter up the wiki page with it.  Essentially I wanted to detail some thoughts on having a BioBlitz associated with a TDWG 2010 meeting in Woods Hole.  I understand Woods Hole is one of the candidates for 2010 and,  being a Woods Hole native,  I got very excited at the prospect of it.  I was already considering the possibilities of synergies with the Biomedical Informatics course that is held there twice a year and brings some of the best names in medical informatics to town in the autumn.

I assembled a document with some thoughts on a Woods Hole venue for the BioBlitz and put it on Google Docs.

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgmbb297_673gvb58nfg

This is something that could be a very nice opportunity to showcase TDWG-related activities in a place that can supply both habitat, infrastructure, and expertise in a way I can't imagine other candidate places can.  It also is one of the centers for the EOL and BHL and would,  I hope, present them with a opportunity to play a role here as well.

I hope there is some merit in the idea.

David Remsen (GBIF)

----- Original Message -----
From: "joel sachs" <jsachs at csee.umbc.edu>
To: tdwg at lists.tdwg.org
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 6:51:27 PM
Subject: [tdwg] Bioblitz at TDWG 2010?

Greetings TDWG,

One of the outcomes of our citizen science working session in Montpellier
is the idea of holding a mini-bioblitz near the conference center at TDWG
2010. We thought this would be fun, would bring communities together, and
would be an opportunity to eat our own dog food, since so much TDWG
technology could be brought to bare.  I think we're going to do it.
We've started discussion here:
http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/BioBlitz2010

Please join the discussion by adding ideas, questions, and concerns. Also,
if you have experience in, or enthusiasm for, bioblitz-type activities,
please consider volunteering to help with planning and execution.

Best to all -
Joel.


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