Citizen science: The community is invited to study the natural world during the Ecoblitz

Have you ever seen a four-toed salamander, rue anemone or a bronze ground beetle? How about Witch’s Butter?

All of these can be found on the Binghamton University campus. (Witch’s Butter, as it turns out, is a type of fungus.)

Campus and community members will observe and catalog as much nature as they can during the third annual EcoBlitz, a collaboration that includes student groups such as Zero Hour and the Audubon Society, as well as the new Natural Global Environmental Change Center on campus.

New this year is a second Ecoblitz at Ross Park Zoo in the City of Binghamton. The zoo’s kickoff event will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 18 and 19, while the main campus kickoff runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 26 in Lot M, across from the Binghamton University Nature Preserve.

“We hope that people from the Binghamton community and the broader community will join us,” said Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Kirsten Prior. “There will be a lot of fun activities for people of all ages. It’s not just for researchers and college students.”

The zoo event will include tree and insect identification, a scavenger hunt, games, prizes and photos with the Easter bunny. Meanwhile, representatives from the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County and the Waterman Conservation and Education Center will join this year’s campus event. Student and community groups will offer informational tables and activities, as well as guided walks focused on birds, spring wildflowers and the different colors in nature.

“All of that is to motivate and prepare people for participating in the next two weeks of the Ecoblitz, in which people go out and observe as much as possible of the natural world that we have on campus or at the Ross Park Zoo,” explained Research Assistant Professor Christina Baer of the First-year Research Immersion Program.

Data collection

Data collection for both Ecoblitz locations runs through May 11.

The event is rooted in a concept known as a bioblitz — basically, a designated time period when people head out to a designated area to document and categorize every living thing that they see, in the interest of tracking biodiversity. Binghamton’s Ecoblitz is a bit broader in that it incorporates a wider range of science communication and education.

Observations are recorded through the app iNaturalist, which helps people identify plants and animals in the world around them while generating data for researchers. Scientists around the world then use the data to track large-scale environmental change, from migrations and species behavior to bloom times.

“The motivation behind Ecoblitz during the full two-week span is to encourage people to participate in citizen science,” explained senior biology major Julian Marshall, president of the campus chapter of the National Audubon Society.

The campus event typically draws an average of 200 people. Some of the participating students get competitive, racking up sightings of plants, fungi, vertebrates and invertebrates for prizes, organizers said.

Natural areas at the University include the 190-acre Nature Preserve, while the Ross Park Zoo includes natural trails and creek beds.

Doctoral student Aly Milks said plans are in the works to create an online repository for ecological data and expand the Ecoblitz even further—even to Costa Rica or Virginia’s Chincoteague Bay Field Station, spots that Binghamton faculty and students visit for research.

“Our thought is that we want to extend to all of Broome County, potentially looking at different parks during a different time period, such as the fall,” Milks added. “As we extend this beyond Binghamton University, we hope we can reach a broader audience who would be interested in iNaturalist, ecology and biodiversity, and make them a little more conscious of the natural world.”