Project 1: GEO BON OSC/iNaturalist

The goal of this GEO BON OSC/iNaturalist project is simple: Go out into the world and collect as many species’ observations during the course of the conference as possible. The best observations will be highlighted each morning and winners for several different categories (most observations, funniest observation, …) will be announced at the end of the conference! The GEO BON OSC/iNaturalist project will form part of the iNaturalist BioBlitz events.

Link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/geo-bon-osc-inat-2020

Link: Winners & Runner-ups of the project

What is a BioBlitz?

A BioBlitz is a communal citizen-science effort to record as many species within a designated location and time period as possible. Using iNaturalist allows for public participation and can create high-quality data due to the large online community ready to verify the observations.

Each contribution, no matter how small, will contribute directly to science!

Project 2: How Valuable are our Urban Wastelands?

Link: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/urban-biodiversity-geobon-2020

Goal

Collect biodiversity data on abandoned and managed urban sites and compare the effect of active vs. passive management of urban green sites on biodiversity.

Approach

Record as many of the living species within:

1. a passively managed site:
   (sites that are abandoned, neglected sites with spontaneous vegetation dynamics. For example, sites after demolition of industrial buildings and warehouses, grassy sites in the suburbs, sites near abandoned infrastructure, such as canals and railways), and
2. an actively managed site
   (these sites are, for example, urban parks, public and private gardens, suburban yards).

Each participant should ensure that sampling effort, namely area of the site and time spent sampling, should be roughly the same for the two land use types. For example, if you spend 1 hour collecting data in a 1 ha abandoned site, aim to do the same for the managed site.

This will focus on the following taxa only:

• Mammals
• Plants
• Reptiles
• Amphibians
• Birds

Remember to add an observation field for observations in either “Abandoned Site” or “Managed Site” so that the observation can be matched to the land use type afterwards.

Outcome

With this project, we will be able to assess the potential for non-actively managed sites to contribute to urban biodiversity in a rewilding context. The resultant datasets will be publicly available for all to use after the conference is finished.

Steps for participation:

1. Create an iNaturalist account if you haven’t already. For more information see here
2. Join the BioBlitz projects via the following links: Link 1 | Link 2
3. Go out and explore the world around you!