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McHenry BioBlitz Surprises Biologists

The “BioBlitz”—an event where scientists and volunteers scour a natural site with a fine-toothed comb, attempting to record as many species of living things as they can—is becoming more and more familiar to people interested in nature, and more organizations appear to be using the headline-grabbing hyper-surveys to rally excitement for biodiversity. The McHenry County Conservation District staged its first BioBlitz on September 16 at [[Pleasant Valley Conservation Area]] [JELL: PLEASE ADD LINK HERE] near Woodstock, Illinois, and the results surprised even the staff scientists.

Beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing until almost 6 that evening, 120 people showed up on what organizer Mary Kozub called “an awesome, beautiful day.” Members of the public could sign up to go out with scientists, who recorded and collected specimens using the district’s data collection methods. (Following the monitoring protocol ensures the day’s labors will be useful to ongoing studies.)

Limiting themselves to one square mile of the preserve, scientists recorded 629 total species. That figure included 112 species that had never before been recorded at Pleasant Valley, despite the district’s having done some monitoring on the site as far back as 15 years ago.

In the ten-hour BioBlitz, monitors found: 104 plant species, including 31 new to the site; 37 bird species, including a black-throated green warbler; 44 new species of fungi including honey mushroom, hen-of-the-woods, stinkhorns, turkey tails, and puffballs; and 8 species of reptile or amphibian, 2 of them new.

Friends of the Fox River also helped monitors investigate aquatic insect larvae in a spring-fed pond, part of Laughing Creek, discovering 23 species of macroinvertebrates. While researchers recorded 8 mammal species (none new), they inferred most of them from signs such as tracks and scat.

“It was a bonding time,” says Kozub. “It really gave our natural resource management department a chance to shine. They’re out there all the time, but they don’t get credit. They did great.” Twenty-four people even stayed late to join a group of astronomers for some stargazing—maybe they were hoping to add a few extraterrestrials to the day’s list.

— Don Parker

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Calumet BioBlitz, CW, Fall 2002