We use teams to help organize the science and the logistics at BioBlitz. All participants must be assigned to a team. In addition to taxonomic teams and habitat teams, we have an art team and even a “people team” that helps run the event.
The teams vary from year to year depending on habitat, expertise, and interests. Some teams might be focused narrowly on a single taxon, others might be broad. Some teams are organized around habitats and feed their finds out to the right taxonomic team. For example a “pond team” focused on Ephemeroptera will also encounter aquatic invertebrates in other taxa that have their own teams. They make sure these finds get to the right team. There is no “right way” to organize a team. Do it the way you feel comfortable and that will engage your energy.
2012 BioBlitz Teams (Preliminary)
Here are taxa we know we’ll have someone working on. If you want to be put in touch with the leader of one of these teams, put that down on your registration form. If you’re interested in a sub-taxon, just let us know and be sure to report your results through the appropriate “higher” taxon team. For recording purposes we group taxa even more, into overarching “super teams:” all plants (including vascular and non-vascular), all mycota (including lichens and fungi), all non-arthropod invertebrates, all insects, and all vertebrates.
Art [Art Team]
Earth Science
Microscopic Unicellular Organisms Other Than Algae and Fungi
Vascular Plants [The Plantathletes]
Algae (Freshwater and Terrestrial) [The Phycophreaks]
Algae (Marine)
Mosses [The Standing Stones]
Lichens [The Cladonia Crazies]
Fungi [The Fun-Guys]
Mollusks[The Muckrakers]
Other Terrestrial Soil Macro-invertebrates [The Litterbugs]
Spiders & Kin [The Creepy Crawlies]
Crustaceans & Kin [The Crabby Crawlies]
Beetles [Beetleers]
Mosquitos
Dragonflies/Damselflies
Butterflies
Moths [The Night Knights]
Ants
Bees & Wasps
All Other Insects
Reptiles & Amphibians [The Herpetophiles]
Fish [The Aquaverts]
Birds
Mammals
A team’s job can be greatly simplified by using a checklist of species. There are a number available for download from RINHS or elsewhere.
Rhode Island Species Checklists
Teams can submit an annotated checklist at the end of the event but if your chosen taxon doesn’t have a checklist or if you find things that aren’t under a team, you can submit species using our observation reporting form. This form has a map on the back so you can note find spots or sites you ran a particular kind of trap. These forms will be available at the BioBlitz site, you don’t need to come with your own.
RI BioBlitz Observation Reporting Form (with site map) PDF:1.5MB
In order to help assemble teams that will cover the widest range of possible species, we have developed a BioBlitz reporting taxonomy. It is not really a proper phylogenetic or cladistic ordering. Many levels of organization have been left off and some older groupings retained despite new orderings emerging from the scientific taxonomists. The goal is to simplify the presentation and focus on taxa that the scientifically literate public would be most familiar with. In one sense it might help to think of it as a list of the potential maximum number of teams. By starting with this list, we can then condense down to the teams we actually have available with the hope no taxon will be left unassigned. The document is helpful, too, for reminding participants to keep their eyes open for obscure, interesting, or often overlooked creatures.
RI BioBlitz Reporting Taxonomy .xlsx:16K
BioBlitz is a weird sort of game and to increase the fun we track the performance of each team against the theoretical maximum number of species in their taxon and against the RI BioBlitz average and record high and low for their taxon. At the closing announcement every year we recognize teams that set new records and find the highest percentage of the theoretical maximum. If you’re setting goals, here’s the list:
RI BioBlitz Stats PDF:66K