BioBlitz - 24-Hour Search for Species
A BioBlitz is an intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists, and volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a continuous time period.
PRI has participated in several BioBlitzes, and we run seasonal BioBlitzes in the East Finger Lakes region. Our events are typically 4 days long, encompassing weekdays so that teachers can potentially involve their students in these activities during the school week. These data collection events provide snapshots of the biodiversity of life in our region, important records as human activity is changing the climate, ecosystems, and wildlife habitats. See below for information about our BioBlitzes and data from past events.
Map of East Finger Lakes region
Map: iNaturalist. The red squares indicate locations of observations made during our Spring 2021 bioblitz.
Our next BioBlitz: Spring!
April 25-May 1, 2025
Please join us from wherever you are in the Cayuga Lake basin! We are calling all nature observers to document the life around us using the iNaturalist app. This event is part of our series of seasonal bioblitzes, to help document the diversity of life in our region over time as the climate and other factors change.
You don’t need to be an expert to participate. Create an account on iNaturalist and add the app to your smart phone. Then photograph wild things, or record their sounds, and upload them. Or use a regular camera and upload photos later on your computer. If you don’t know what you’re seeing, no worries – the app will help identify the organisms you observe. And a community of other observers can help you refine the identification later as well.
Project page: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/spring-2025-east-finger-lakes-bioblitz
Do you have questions about participating in bioblitzes or about using iNaturalist? Please contact Ingrid Zabel at zabel@priweb.org.
Past BioBlitzes
Winter 2025 BioBlitz
Held Jan. 31 - Feb. 3, 2025 through iNaturalist
553Observations |
229Species |
128Identifiers |
59Observers |
Autumn 2025 BioBlitz
Held October 11-14, 2024 through iNaturalist
494Observations |
322Species |
133Identifiers |
120Observers |
Summer 2024 Bioblitz
Held July 26-29, 2024 through iNaturalist
2055Observations |
961Species |
294Identifiers |
216Observers |
Spring 2024 Bioblitz
Held April 26-29, 2024 through iNaturalist
2119Observations |
653Species |
231Identifiers |
223Observers |
Winter 2024 BioBlitz
Held January 26-29, 2024 through iNaturalist
585Observations |
308Species |
167Identifiers |
45Observers |
Autumn 2023 BioBlitz
Held October 6-9, 2023 through iNaturalist
971Observations |
520Species |
204Identifiers |
112Observers |
Summer 2023 BioBlitz
Held July 28-31, 2023 through iNaturalist
2414Observations |
991Species |
314Identifiers |
191Observers |
Spring 2023 BioBlitz: City Nature Challenge
Held April 28-May 1, 2023 through iNaturalist
952Observations |
386Species |
167Identifiers |
164Observers |
Winter 2023 BioBlitz
Held midnight January 27, 2023 - midnight January 30, 2023 through iNaturalist
317Observations |
144Species |
117Identifiers |
46Observers |
Autumn 2022 BioBlitz
Held midnight September 30, 2022 - midnight October 3, 2022 through iNaturalist
1677Observations |
727Species |
262Identifiers |
187Observers |
Summer 2022 BioBlitz
Held midnight July 29, 2022 - midnight August 1, 2022 through iNaturalist
2357Observations |
998Species |
304Identifiers |
202Observers |
Spring 2022 BioBlitz: City Nature Challenge
Held April 29 - May 2, 2022 through iNaturalist
1634Observations |
576Species |
236Identifiers |
184Observers |
Winter 2022 BioBlitz
Held January 28-31, 2022 through iNaturalist
204Observations |
116Species |
64Identifiers |
20Observers |
Autumn 2021 BioBlitz - Eastern Finger Lakes
Held October 1-3, 2021 through iNaturalist
1,171Observations |
518Species |
160Identifiers |
127Observers |
Summer 2021 BioBlitz
Held midnight July 23, 2021 - midnight July 25, 2021 through iNaturalist
2,161Observations |
888Species |
221Identifiers |
188Observers |
City Nature Challenge (Spring 2021 BioBlitz)
Held April 30 - May 3, 2021 through iNaturalist
3,207Observations |
816Species |
390Identifiers |
199Observers |
Winter Social Distance BioBlitz 2021
Held January 30 - January 31, 2021 through iNaturalist
245Observations |
120Species |
70Identifiers |
17Observers |
Autumn Social Distance BioBlitz 2020
Held October 10 - October 11, 2020 through iNaturalist
1,152Observations |
517Species |
174Identifiers |
112Observers |
Summer Social Distance BioBlitz 2020
Held July 25 - July 26, 2020 through iNaturalist
1,632Observations |
713Species |
246Identifiers |
97Observers |
Spring Social Distance BioBlitz 2020
Held April 25 - April 26, 2020 through iNaturalist
831Observations |
327Species |
149Identifiers |
35Observers |
Watch this video to learn about bioblitzes, and how you can join with others to get to know the life in your neighborhood!
SIPS BioBlitz at Cayuga Nature Center & Smith Woods
In September 2017, fourteen taxonomic teams of scientists and volunteers joined forces to count as many species as they could over a 24-hour period at the Cayuga Nature Center and the old-growth forest remnant Smith Woods. This fantastic SIPS BioBlitz event ended up cataloging over 500 macroscopic species and 25,000 species of microbes while also engaging the public in a multitude of exciting activities.
Discoveries
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Species Found: 65
Twenty-nine of the 65 bird species (45%) identified during the BioBlitz are new observations – not present on the Cayuga Nature Center (CNC) master list originally compiled in 1992.
Birds are dinosaurs!
Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) Ostrich. There are approximately 10,000 extant species that have evolved from earlier feathered dinosaurs within the Theropod group.
Primitive birds – like Archeopteryx – date to the mid-Jurassic period 170 million years ago. Birds’ closest modern relatives are crocodiles and alligators.
Native V. Non-Native Species
The vast majority of bird species observed during the BioBlitz – or at any time in the Cayuga Basin – are native species. However, there are a handful of very common birds that were introduced to North America by humans. On the BioBlitz species list the Pigeon (from Europe/Africa), Starling (Europe) and House Finch (Mexico) have all been introduced to the area. Non-native species can be benign, but in most ecosystems non-natives compete with native species for food, nesting locations and habitat.
Birds Play Many Roles, Including As Predators, Pollinators, Scavengers, Seed Dispersers, Seed Predators, And Ecosystem Engineers
Characteristics of most birds make them unique from the perspective of ecosystem services. Because most birds fly, they can respond to irruptive or pulsed resources in ways generally not possible for other vertebrates. Migratory species link ecosystem processes and fluxes that are separated by great distances and time.
A bird’s ability to fly has captured the human imagination for millennia. When you come across a bird feather look at it closely. Is it perfectly symmetrical along its central shaft? If so it is a rectrix – a feather from the tail used for steering in flight. If the feather is asymmetrical, with one side narrower than the other, then it is a remex from the wing, used for thrust and lift. This is the key to flying. Human flight engineers shape the wings of airplanes after the convex and asymmetrical remiges (plural of remex) of birds, thus allowing humans to fly.
Silent Spring
Birdsong – or rather, the lack of birdsong – is the phenomenon that gives the title to Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson identified the widespread use of agricultural pesticides as the cause for declining populations of bird species. Apex predators and scavengers are most at risk from the effects of biomagnification of pesticide toxins in the food chain. In the US in the 1950s there were only 412 nesting pairs of once widespread Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) recorded in the lower 48 states. The pesticide DDT caused eagle egg shells to thin to the point of collapse under a brooding bird, thus leading to a steep decline in population. Rachel Carson’s book sparked the modern environmental movement, the ban of DDT for agricultural use, and the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Following the ban on DDT and federal legal protections for Bald Eagles, the population recovered, reaching 100,000 birds by the early 1980s.
The Cayuga Basin Is An Important Flyway
The Cayuga Basin provides important habitat for birds migrating along the Atlantic flyway from Canada to the Caribbean. Species migrate to take advantage of the different seasonal temperatures that control the availability of food sources and breeding habitat. Many landbirds, shorebirds and waterbirds undertake annual long distance migrations, triggered by decreasing hours of daylight and changing weather conditions. These birds spend the summer breeding season in temperate or polar regions, and the non-breeding season in the tropics or in the opposite hemisphere. Migration routes and wintering grounds are both genetically and traditionally determined depending on the social system of the species. Birds prepare for migration by substantially increasing body fat reserves. Sooty Shearwaters have the longest migration path, flying annually between Alaska and New Zealand, 39,000 miles. Birds need suitable habitat across the length of their flyway thus bird conservation becomes a global concern. Additionally, the timing of bird migration has been altered by global climate change.
The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) is a North American native species with a widespread range east of the Mississippi River. This hummingbird is migratory, spending winter in Mexico and Central America, then flying north to its breeding range in the spring and summer.
Hummingbirds Have The Unique Ability To Hover While Flying, And Can Even Fly Backwards
This is accomplished by the birds’ unusual wing musculature, which allows the wings to rotate almost 180° and move in a figure-eight pattern. The hummingbird can beat its wings at a rate of 80 beats/second.
Hummingbirds are nectivores and insectivores, with specialized tongues to extract nectar from deep within flowers. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are tiny, only 3 inches in length, with the male sporting the iridescent red throat that gives the species its common name. Their small size makes their migration to Central America even more astonishing. While some birds follow the Gulf coastline south, many make a direct crossing of the Gulf of Mexico, traveling 500 miles in a nonstop flight of 20 hours!
Participants
Scott Sutcliffe was the Lead for Team Ornithology. He joined the Cornell Lab of Ornithology staff in 1985. Scott is a graduate of the Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and the University of New Hampshire.
Scott is the Lab of O’s Director of the Annual Fund and Stewardship. Before joining the Lab of O he worked for Audubon and The Nature Conservancy. His passions are birds and environmental conservation!
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Species Found: 97
Sites:
Cayuga Nature Center (25 species)
Smith Woods (72 species)
The kingdom of fungi is incredibly diverse, and found in almost every habitat on earth
Fungi have been around for about 1 billion years
Fungi include molds, yeasts, mushrooms, truffles, conks, and all kinds of plant disease organisms, like powdery mildews and blights.
Fungi live most of the time as mycelium - branching filamentous cells as fine as spiderweb, with outer cell walls made of chitin, with cell contents similar to humans. Most fungi make spores and fruiting bodies that are too small to see without a microscope.
Methods
Team Mycology went out into the woods with baskets and looked for the fruiting bodies that we know as mushrooms. This method of counting dramatically undercounts the fungi that are present because mushrooms are only the ephemeral fruits of fungal colonies which spend most of the year in the substrate. Within their substrate, fungi are slowly growing and digesting logs, dead leaves, or soil (in the case of saprobes), or living in connection with their plant hosts by swapping water and nutrients for sugars made by the plant through photosynthesis.
Most fungal species have a favorite season for producing their fruiting bodies, and since the spores need water for dispersal and growth, fungi typically fruit as soon as there is sufficient moisture, which is why a few days after rain we often see a flush of mushrooms. During the BioBlitz, conditions were dry, so the counts of fungi were low. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there!
Fungi Of The Cayuga Basin
Our moist temperature climate supports a wide variety of fungi.
How Many? We Have No Idea
There’s no definitive list of fungi in our region, or in New York state. Cornell has had a mycologist on staff since the earliest days of the university, and that is reflected in the rich holdings of the Cornell Plant Pathology Herbarium (CUP) which has 300,000 specimens of fungi as well as thousands of photographs, the majority of them local to our region. They can be searched through the CUP website.
We Haven't Found Everything That Lives Around Here
In 2017 the Hodge lab was part of finding and naming a completely new genus and species of fungi in Ithaca - one that kills millipedes (Hodge, Hajek & Gryganskyi 2017).
Fungi Aren't Related To Plants - They Are Much More Closely Related To You!
Fungi Interact With Humans In So Many Ways:
• Food! (Edible Mushrooms, Soy Sauce, Cheeses, Tempeh, Etc)
• Fuel (Yeasts Make Ethanol)
• Medicines (Penicillin, Lovastatin, Cyclosporine, Etc)
• Plant Pathogens (Impact Agriculture)
• Human Diseases (Everything From Athlete's Foot To Deadly Valley Fever)
• Mycotoxins (In Our Food And Home)
• Allergens (Molds)
Participants
Team Lead was Kathie Hodge, Associate Professor in the Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section of Cornell’s School of Integrative Plant Science (SIPS) whose work focuses on fungal biodiversity, especially of pathogens of insects, and molds that spoil food. The team also included, among others, SUNY-Cortland Professor Tim Baroni, members of Cornell’s mushroom club the Fantastic Fungi Fanatics, a sharp-eyed middle schooler, other avid mushroom hunters, and Megan Biango-Daniels. Megan recently completed her Cornell PhD on a mold that attacks apples and spoils canned foods. Along the way Megan also discovered that molds routinely contaminate commercial sea salts. Now she’s a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University.
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Families Found: 93
Methods: Collecting, observing, trapping, identifying, photographing, and documenting insects. This included digging into logs, leaves, and trees to see what was there. Sight-identifying insects, and using microscopes and taxonomic keys to identify pinned specimens.
Insects Are Broadly Subdivided Into Orders
The five largest orders include: *Hymenoptera* (sawflies, ants, bees, & wasps), *Coleoptera* (beetles), *Lepidoptera* (moths & butterflies), *Diptera* (flies, gnats, mosquitoes), and *Hemiptera* (stink bugs, aphids, cicadas, etc.).
Insects surround us! They are big and small, drab and colorful -- from showy swallowtails and darner dragonflies to minute parasitoids and little leaf litter critters. There are different insects present on water and land & found in the day and night. Some insects are easily apparent, but some are hidden.
While insects can be detrimental to humans by transmitting deadly and debilitating diseases to us, our pets and livestock, or devastating our crops, there are of course also many insects that are beneficial. Beneficial insects eat pests, help decompose detritus, pollinate flowers, and provide us with products such as honey and silk.
Insect Diversity And Success Is Largely Due To:
• Complex and highly variable mouth parts
• The ability to fly
• Metamorphosis
• Incredible reproductive capacities
BioBlitz kicked off the start of the semester and was a great learning experience for the students of Cornell’s ENTOM 3310. The team focused on identifying species to the family level.
Despite A Great Sampling Effort, It Is Easy To Miss Common Insects During A BioBlitz Due To Their Small Size Or Obscurity, The Time Of Year, Or Chilly, Wet Weather Loke What Was Experienced During The BioBlitz Weekend
A total of 93 insect families were recorded. Some of these families had several species represented. For example, within the bee family Apidae (which includes species such as honeybees and bumblebees), ten different species were found! There were many common families not counted, which means that the insect diversity is actually probably much higher than what was counted.
There Are About 1 Million Described Insects, And Many Millions More That Have Not Yet Been Described
Insects are the most extraordinarily specious and diversified group of animals on earth, and species are adapted for almost all habitats on the planet. You’ll find them on land, air, and water. In our area, you’ll even find insects that can crawl around on the snow in January! (small stoneflies, family Capniidae).
In The Cayuga Basin, You Can Find Representatives of 24 Out Of The 28 Orders Of Insects That Occur Worldwide!
When undertaking a 24-hour collecting extravaganza of a specious group such as insects, it is a great benefit to have a large group of participants with diverse interests and strengths in insect identification. The Cornell ENTOM 3310 class of talented and energetic students was well-suited for the task. The BioBlitz allowed the class to collect specimens, gain knowledge and experience in the field, and contribute to the documentation and understanding of insects in the Cayuga Basin.
Participants
Team Entomology, led by Cornell ENTOM 3310 instructors Elizabeth Murray and Bryan Danforth with post doc Peter Buck also included 14 entomology undergrad and graduate students who attended as part of the lab requirement for ENTOM 3310. Students gained a broad overview of insect diversity, including learning how to collect and identify insects.
Junior Jacob Gorneau , Entomology major, had one of the highest number of observations at the Smith Woods site, contributing 23 observations just from that locality!
Team entomology camped overnight at the Cayuga Nature Center to collect into the night and early morning.
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Species Found: 123
Cayuga Nature Center Species: 60
• Lichens: 11 (These lichens we all very common species)
• Bryophytes: 49
Smith Woods Species: 63
• Lichens: 26 (There were more uncommon and interesting species here)
• Bryophytes: 37
Lichens And Mosses Are Unrelated
Lichens are fungi, while bryophytes are “primitive” (basal) plants. They do have some things in common however. They are both poikilohydric (being able to survive even without a structural mechanism to prevent their own desiccation) and photosynthetic. Therefore
They Both Grow In Places Where They Can Get Sufficient Sunlight But Where Vascular Plants Have A Hard Time Growing Such As On Rock Outcrops And The Bark Of Trees
Lichens Are Not A Single Organism But A Symbiotic Partnership Of Separate Fungus & Alga Organisms
The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its physical characteristics. The algal partner in turn provides food for the fungus through photosynthesis. The alga can be either a “green alga” or a “blue-green alga” (which is actually cyanobacteria, and therefore part of the bacterial kingdom Monera instead of the algal kingdom Protista) but some lichens contain both. Many Lichen Have A Remarkable Ability To Survive Drought, Freezing, High Temperatures, And Scarcity Of Key Nutrients and therefore dominate under conditions too harsh for vascular plants.
Bryophytes Are Non-Vascular Plants Including Mosses, Liverworts & Hornworts
Bryophytes can survive on rocks and bare soil because they do not depend on roots to absorb nutrients.
Mosses And Vascular Plants (Ferns, Flowers And Trees) Share A Common Ancestor
Flavopunctelia soredica, looks very similar to Flavoparmelia caperata; but the former species was unknown in the Finger Lakes until 2003 when Bob Dirig, one of the Lichens and Bryophytes Team members, discovered it here and noted that soredica now seems to be colonizing the same habitats as caperata in some parts of upstate New York.
Why? We Don't Know!
Bryophytes & Lichens Are Sensitive To Air Pollution and disappear as atmospheric pollution increases. Many studies have been published using these organisms (particularly lichens as they are the most susceptible) to document air pollution, although none have been done for the Cayuga Lake Basin specifically. Stricter air quality regulations have been in place for decades now, but it takes a long time for the lichen and bryophyte flora to recover. There Are Lichens And Bryophytes Considered To Be Specific Old-Growth-Forest-Indicator Species, But The Team Didn't Find Many Of Them In Smith Woods. This Is Probably Due To Still-Lingering Effects Of Historical Air Pollution. Although our air quality has improved greatly, lichens and bryophytes of the Cayuga Lake Basin are still recovering from the past, and species diversity isn’t very high.
Interesting Lichen Found In Smith Woods
One of the lichens found at Smith Woods was Peltigera praetextata. It is a lichen that has a cyanobacteria partner instead of a green alga. While that is not very unusual in and of itself, it was found in great profusion covering the bases of some old trees in Smith Woods; when found growing as a big "apron" at the base of a tree, it's a sign that the habitat is an old-growth forest. Scott LaGreca and his colleagues at Duke later sequenced a specimen sample, and it is of a haplotype (genetic type) previously unknown even to these experts on the genus Peltigera; they had not before seen any specimens of this species with this particular genetic signature.
Participants
The Lichen and Bryophytes Team was led by (then) Cornell lichenologist Scott Legreca ʻ91, who was also Lead Organizer for the BioBlitz itself and three other scientist: lichenologists Robert Dirig '71, '74 and Bob Kibbee and bryologist Norm Trigoboff.
Bob Dirig was a mentor of Scott LaGreca’s while he was a Cornell undergraduate, and Scott worked for Bob in the Herbarium. Scott returned to Cornell in 2011 just as Bob retired, and assumed his role in the Herbarium. Scott was absolutely thrilled to work with Bob, the man who taught him his very first lichens, during the BioBlitz, saying: “My life and career had come full circle.”
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Species Found: 41
Sites & Methods: Used a D-frame aquatic dip net to sample lentic and lotic environments at Cayuga Nature Center.
Macroinvertebrates are organisms without backbones, which are visible to the eye without the aid of a microscope.
Aquatic Macroinvertebrates live on, under, and around rocks and sediment on the bottoms of lakes, rivers, and streams.
Macroinvertebrate communities are a fascinating and diverse group of aquatic consumers and detritivores processing live organic material and consuming decomposing organic matter. Macroinvertebrates also serve as prey for various fish, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species.
Aquatic Macroinvertebrates Perform Numerous Ecological Roles, Contributing To The Structure And Function Of Every Aquatic Environment In The Cayuga Basin
There are 10 orders of Insects that possess aquatic representatives during at least part of their life cycle.
Fossil And Genetic Evidence Show Terrestrial Insect Wings Evolved From Gill-Like Appendages That Were Present In The Aquatic Ancestors Of Both Insects And Crustaceans
Modern day taxa of aquatic insects re-colonized freshwater approximately two-hundred million years ago.
At the BioBlitz the larvae of Crambus sp. were found. Crambus sp.- a moth (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) has aquatic larvae. While the species is not 'rare' per se, finding one of the aquatic larvae is.
Larvae construct protective silken nets or felt-like canopies on submerged plants or stony substrates from which they extend to graze on periphyton. Adults emerge by swimming up to the surface with their wings and then live for about two weeks.
Aquatic Macroinvertebrates Are Found In All Types Of Habitats From Small Streams, To Ponds, To Spring Seeps... Go Out & Look For Some Near You!
Participants
Team lead was Kelly Wessell, Chair of Environmental Studies at TC3 who worked with Jeremy Dietrich, an environmental consultant with Ichthyological Associates, LLC and an invertebrate taxonomist at Cornell University.
Vanessa Covert, Carrie D'Aprix, Nadia Shevchenko, TC3 students at the time also participated, as did Phil Koons, and Franny Lux who worked for the Floating Classroom. Franny is also a high school student at Lehman Alternative Community School in Ithaca.
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Species Found: 10
Mammals might be the largest and most "obvious" animal denizens of an ecosystem, but they are actually hard to detect in a short time frame. While a few can be seen as we walk through the woods, they are not as abundant and are often more shy than other kinds of organisms. While only three species of mammal were spotted in Smith Woods during the BioBlitz, during the scouting expedition signs of chipmunks, flying squirrels, raccoons, and woodchucks were also seen. The three mammals seen during the BioBlitz represent different branches of the mammalian family tree, and each leads a very different lifestyles.
The Virginia opossum, a medium-sized omnivorous marsupial, is the most evolutionarily unusual of the mammals seen during the BioBlitz. Marsupials Split From The Other Mammals About 90 Million Years Ago and were the only mammals in South America when North and South America connected 3 million years ago. The Virginia opossum is the only marsupial to have spread into North America, though it has many relatives in the south.
It was no surprise to see evidence of white-tailed deer on the BioBlitz; these large herbivores are common and highly over-populated.
White-Tailed Deer are the largest herbivores and our only wild local artiodactyls (even-toed hoofed mammals). Sheep, cows, llamas, and pigs are all examples of domesticated animals in this group.
The high density of deer in the region is caused by plentiful food and few predators in the human-dominated landscape. As such, deer have severely impacted our natural areas. Heavy grazing by deer on their favorite plants has decimated not just the understory plants but also the young trees.
One Of The Primary Goals Of The BioBlitz Was To Document The State Of Smith Woods Under Deer Pressure Before The Installation Of A Deer Exclusion Fence.
Even Small Urban Forests Like Smith Woods Have Carnivores
The Red Fox came out during BioBlitz. The red fox is both a carnivore (meat eater) and a member of the Carnivora, the Order of mammals that includes the dogs, cats, and other major predators.
Many mammal species have adapted to living close by humans. Deer are thriving in our area. Mice, squirrels, and other rodents readily find food in human yards just as well as in the woods. Skunks, raccoons, and opossums all benefit from humans, including sheltering under (or in!) houses and eating our garbage. Larger predators like coyotes, foxes, and bobcat are more likely to shy away from humans, although they too have learned to use our spaces when we are not looking. Although having these species close-by can at times be a nuisance or even dangerous (car collisions, disease transmission), of course many people find great pleasure in viewing wild mammals in the landscape.
Methods:
The team watched for animals and looked for footprints, scat, or other sign to indicate the recent presence of local mammalian residents. Baited traps were set overnight in an attempt to catch small and medium-size mammals. To capture visual evidence of larger mammals, baited motion-sensitive trail cameras were also set up both during the day and night.
Participants
Team Mammals consisted only of Team Lead Leann Kanda, Associate Professor of Animal Ecology at Ithaca College. As a behavioral and population ecologist with a background in mammalian behavior and population dynamics, her driving interest is understanding the choices made at the individual animal level to explain where they are found on the landscape.
Dr. Kanda looks at mammalian temperament both in the lab and in the field where she routinely captures animal behavior with video trail-cameras. She also examines fine-scale habitat use and population dynamics of wildlife in relation to human landscape features by tackling questions such as the timing and success rate of different species when crossing roads.
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Species Found: 25863
Sites: N = 185 (animal microbiome, fungal microbiome, lichen microbiome, plant microbiome, soil microbiome & aquatic samples)
Humans rely on bacteria for everything from food production and digestion to the production of energy and pharmaceuticals.
Microbes are the most diverse form of life on the Earth and they perform many functions that are important to the health of our biosphere. While some microbes are pathogens most are beneficial and without them plants and animals could not survive. Humans rely on microbes in many different ways. Digestion of plant material is largely dependent on the activities of microbes in the large intestine. These microbes help provide humans and other animals with vitamins and nutrients that are important for health and well-being. Humans also interact with microbes in agriculture. Plant microbiomes and plant pathogens influence plant health, and soil microbes provide the foundation for soil fertility. In the food industry microbes are used to make and preserve foods. Additionally, microbes are essential components for treating drinking and wastewater. Microbes are also used in mining and industrial production, as well as in the production of biofuels such as ethanol and methane. In biotechnology microbes are used to produce a variety of pharmaceuticals.
Team Microbe used DNA sequencing to identify species of Bacteria at the Cayuga Nature Center.
A microbiome is the collection of microbes associated with particular habitat or organism. The team sampled the microbiomes of soils, water, plants, animals, and fungi. Water and soil samples contained the most bacterial species but every plant and animal was home to a diverse collection of bacterial species.
Over 90% of the species found were not named or well known to science!
Methods
Identification method follows a strict set of steps:
• Extract DNA
• Amplify 16S rRNA genes using Polymerase Chain Reaction
• Barcode DNA from each sample
• Sequence the amplified genes using Illumina MiSeq
• 161 samples with good results
• 10.7M total sequences (average of ~66459 sequences/sample)
• 16S rRNA gene sequence allows for species level identification.
Findings
In general tree and plant microbiomes were the most diverse, but the number of species found differed within sample types. Some samples from the skin of critters had a large number of species (Toad and Salamander), while some had few (Bullfrog Tadpole and Bullfrog).
The feather sample had a surprising number of bacterial species. This may indicate that feathers collect bacteria from a variety of places where a bird visits.
In contrast to the diverse bacteria found in water, leaf, and soil samples, the animal microbiomes samples tended to contain a highly distinct set of bacteria.** This demonstrates that each animal is selecting for certain types of microbes, in essence creating its own curated microbiome!
Every Breath You Take... Microbes Such As Cyanobacteria And Phytoplankton Produce About Half Of The Oxygen In The Air We Breathe!
It was expected that soils of the area would be the most diverse habitat for bacteria. While soils were indeed highly diverse, the creek site was actually found to have the highest diversity.
Sampling and analysis showed that the creek was collecting microbes from the entire watershed. Only a small number of bacterial species found in the creek were unique to the creek itself, and most of the bacteria found in it were also found in soils, plants, and animals. This might be a different story if the stream were lower flow, but the sampling did take place the day after rain. Around the Nature Center, streams, ponds and the slippery stuff that forms on rocks called ‘biofilms’ were sampled. Cyanobacteria were much more abundant in the biofilms than either pond or stream water.
Participants
Team Microbe had 15 participants including four faculty and 11 grad students. The participants came from the Section of Soil and Crop Sciences, the Section of Plant Pathology and Plant Microbe Biology and the Department of Microbiology at Cornell.
Daniel H. Buckley led the soil sampling, Esther Angert (Microbiology) led the animal sampling, Tory Hendry (Microbiology) led the plant sampling, and Kalia Bistolis (Microbiology) led the aquatic sampling.
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Species Found: 17
Sites & Methods:
• Cayuga Nature Center: 15
• Smith Woods: 4
Visual field search
Leaf litter collected and sorted in lab
Tiny snails removed under dissecting scope
Humble Snails And Slugs Are Often Overlooked, Yet They Are Vital Species
Residing close to the bottom of the food web, snails and slugs act as the clean-up crews of the ecosystem, mostly consuming decaying vegetation and fungi, from which they glean essential nutrients, then in turn they become prey for a wide variety of other animals, including beetles, frogs, salamanders, snakes, turtles, birds, rodents, shrews, and other mammals. Without calcium and other vital minerals from snails and slugs, the ecosystem would not last long. Every little species matters.
Most Species Observed Were Introduced, With Some Being Considered Invasive
Only four of 17, or less than one-quarter, of the species observed during BioBlitz were native to North America.
Snails And Slugs Don't Travel Far By Their Own Volition, But Can Be Spread Far And Wide By Other Factors
Populations of a slug or snail species can easily be isolated by geophysical factors such as hills and bodies of water, which contributes to the evolution of novel species.
The dispersal of some of the widely distributed land mollusks in the area studied was probably due to flooding, as rafts of coarse woody debris can harbor snails, and smaller species can hitch rides on the feet of birds or hooves of deer. Sometimes the diversity in an area like Cayuga Nature Center and Smith Woods is due to the introduction of European species.
The Flamed Tigersnail Is One Of The Few Native Species Found In The BioBlitz
The flamed tigersnail, Anguispira alternata relatively large (shell width up to 23 mm), flashy land snail has a wide distribution in the eastern half of North America, from southern areas of Canada down to the northern parts of the Gulf states, and west to Iowa and Missouri. This species can be found in mixed hardwood forests in the leaf litter and under logs and rocks. Morphometric and genetic work since 2008 reveal much variation in this species, suggesting cryptic species that are not easy to identify from shell characters alone (Clutts, 2008).
More than likely, Introduced And Invasive Snails And Slugs Were Stowaways On The Ships Of The Earliest Europeans To Arrive In North America for any time plants and produce are transported, there is a risk of bringing snails and slugs with them.
Today, human-disturbed areas are often abundant with introduced/invasive species, which survive in a wider range of habitats than our native species, sometimes resulting in their displacement.
Participants
Team Mollusks consisted of team leader Marla Coppolino and six volunteers: Lucy Gagliardo, Susan Wilson, Carol Vanderkarr, Rose Osborn, David Bullis, Jesse Czekanski-Moir.
The team effort really helped! With a search for mostly tiny, brownish snails, it took several pairs of eyes to find them in the leaf litter. Some snails could only be found under the dissecting scope after sorting through many bags of leaf litter.
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Species Found: 66
Sites & Methods:
• Cayuga Nature Center: 46
• Smith Woods: 20
Macroscopic and microscopic visual identification. Looked at symptoms on hosts and morphology of pathogen structures to make identifications. A plant pathogen is any organism that causes disease on a plant. They are highly diverse and found in all five taxonomic kingdoms.
A Plant Pathogen Is An Organism That Causes A Disease On A Plant
Plant pathogens are highly diverse and found in all five taxonomic kingdoms.
Although fungi cause eighty percent of all plant diseases, other organisms that cause plant diseases include bacteria, oomycetes (water molds related to algae), phytoplasmas, nematodes, parasitic plants and viruses. At least one of each of these was represented in the BioBlitz survey.
Plant pathogens have evolved with the plants they infect for millennia. Early records of the relevance of plant diseases on ancient civilizations demonstrate this. The Greek poet Homer wrote about plant diseases plaguing food crops in 1000 B.C. and the ancient Romans prayed and made sacrifices to Rubigo, the goddess of wheat rust, in order to protect their grains in the field.
Plant Pathogen Diversity Is Strongly Correlated With Plant Community & Species Diversity
Due to its range of natural and urban landscapes, the Cayuga Basin, like many forest ecosystems of the Northeast, represents an interesting 'intersection' for plant pathogens. Smith Woods is considered one of the lone remnant pockets of old-growth forests in the Finger Lakes, and possesses an open understory with large-diameter oaks, beech, and hemlock dominating the overstory. Forested portions of the CNC, however, are consistent with a secondary (post-settlement) forest and possess a greater diversity of trees and shrubs when compared to Smith Woods. Forest-covered drainages, as well as a wetland and abandoned field at the CNC, further enhanced the plant communities present on site. The differences in forest structure and composition greatly influenced the diversity of plant pathogens present.
Typically, People Interact With Plant Pathogens When They Cause Disease That Impacts Food Crops, Natural Ecosystems Or Planted Landscapes. Introduced plant pathogens, like chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease, caused significant economic loss to individuals who worked in the timber, nut and landscape industries. These diseases killed billions of trees (American chestnuts and American elms respectively) and significantly altered our forests and landscapes. Similarly, plant diseases may affect the quantity and quality of our food. The same pathogen which caused the potato famine in Ireland, Phytophthora infestans, can wipe out the tomatoes in your garden in a given year.
Rusts Were The Most Prevalent Diseases Found
Rust diseases are caused by fungi with certain morphological and/or developmental features in common, and they are collectively known as "rust fungi." Typical signs on leaves usually include bright orange pustules containing dry, powdery spores.
Many rusts require two hosts to carry out their entire life cycle which can take up to two years to complete!
Past management strategies for economically important plants has focused on removing one of the hosts in hope of disrupting the life cycle of the pathogen.
This method was implemented for White Pine Blister Rust with the two hosts being White Pine and Ribes (currants or gooseberries). Some states still ban the sale and cultivation of Ribes spp. in an effort to control this rust disease.
Rose Rosette Disease Threatens The Multi-Billion Dollar U.S. Rose Industry...And Your Garden
Rose rosette disease (RRD) causes deformed stems, leaves and flowers on rose plants, and may cause plants to die within two-to-three years.
This disease is caused by a virus that is spread by tiny, wingless eriophyid mites. Many cultivated roses including climbers, hybrid teas, floribundas, miniatures, and antique or “old-fashioned” roses are susceptible to RRD and current disease control methods are limited.
Wild multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora), an invasive weed in many areas of the U.S. including the Cayuga Basin, is highly susceptible to RRD and can serve as a reservoir of disease for cultivated roses.
Participants
Team Plant Pathology had nine participants from the Section of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology (one faculty member and eight staff members). Most of the team had a strong background in tree and shrub pathology as well as diseases of herbaceous perennials.
Dawn Daily O'Brian, Shawn Kenaley, Maryann Karp,surveyed Smith Woods and part of CNC on Friday. On Saturday they were joined by Mary McKellar, Gary Bergstrom, Rachel McCarthy and Molly Towne.
Karen Snover-Clift staffed the CNC booth Sandra Jensen helped with identifications back at the diagnostic lab.
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Species Found: 13
Methods:
Hand capture: turning logs and rocks to find species
Hoop traps: in wetlands at Cayuga Nature Center (CNC)
(for turtles, but did not catch any).
Salamanders in the Cayuga Basin have the ability to drop their tail when attacked by a predator, an ability shared with lizards.
The behavior is called tail autonomy. When attacked on the tail by a predator, the tail breaks and starts moving vigorously. This behavior evolved to distract the predator towards the tail and away from the body of the salamander, allowing the salamander to escape.
The team found both striped and unstriped color morphs of the red-backed salamander. Previous research suggests that color morphs may have different temperature preferences, with striped individuals having greater fitness in cooler, wetter conditions than unstriped individuals. The researchers on Team Herp recently published an article in Ecology and Evolution showing that **regional climate and land use practices play important roles in shaping the spatial distribution of color morphs**. They are currently collaborating with researchers at the University of Connecticut to test how color morph frequencies have changed over the last four decades of climate and land use change in New England.
The BioBlitz highlighted the significance of time of year on the availability of species to be sampled.
Many species of amphibians are primarily active in the spring when they are breeding in wetlands. Analyses of BioBlitz data should carefully consider the impact of season on detection probability of different species.
Conditions Were Rather Dry At Smith Woods, And Consequently Amphibian Activity Was Low
Habitat loss and fragmentation is one of the leading causes of amphibian declines worldwide.
Human activity in some parts of the northeastern United States has resulted in much of the landscape being fragmented into small forests stands. One reason forest fragmentation is bad for amphibians has to do with their physiology. Amphibians rely on moist conditions because they breathe across their skin. Some salamanders don’t even have lungs. Fragmented forests receive a lot of light and wind and are consequently warmer and drier than continuous forests.
Warmer, Drier Conditions In Fragmented Forests Place Amphibians At Risk For Desiccation
Participants
All participants in Team Herp were students and faculty from Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS).
Faculty included Brad Cosentino, Brielle Fischman, Jim Ryan, and Kristen Brubaker. Students included Katie Rogan, Maddie Balman, and Rachael Best.
Grace Marshall is a senior at HWS and is currently doing an honors thesis to understand more about the behavioral ecology of red-backed salamanders. She is conducting experiments to understand how habitat fragmentation affects the evolution of dispersal, specifically in the context of exploration and risk-taking strategies.
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Species Found: 37
Methods:
• Visual collection
• Sweep netting
Spiders are found everywhere on Earth, except the ocean and Antarctica, and are particularly diverse near the tropics.
There are currently about 48,000 spider species identified, with an estimated 150,000 to 170,000 species in existence.
Although there are 117 spider families, over 75% of the spider species are found in only 21 common families. Many spider species are common in upstate NY, such as the dark fishing spider. It is the largest spider in the Cayuga Basin area, and a strong, fast predator. Despite what its common name might imply, these spiders are most frequently found far away from water, usually in wooded settings, and on walls in homes. They are mostly shy of humans however.
Spiders are the dominant terrestrial predators on Earth.
Spider populations in upstate New York are large and diverse. Our warm and moist summers also increase the number of insect prey. Populations are most abundant in late summer, as the summer spiderlings move away from their egg sacs.
At the Nature Center the combination of grassland, temperate woodland, and many edges provides plenty of good opportunities for spiders to build webs and catch prey, and therefore good opportunities for humans to see spiders!
It is estimated that spiders eat prey equivalent in weight to all the humans on earth every year!
Rare Species Found At The BioBlitz!
During the Spider Talk & Walk, about thirty people went out to explore the fields behind Cayuga Nature Center. One group noticed an unusual-looking spider that initially was taken for a white berry or bird droppings. Once pulled out of the tree and examined more closely however, Cornell Professor Linda Rayor observed that it had dorsal bumps on the abdomen, and it dawned on her that she was actually holding a rare bolas spider, Mastophora hutchinsoni. Informed of the find, the entire spider group then cheered and whooped with excitement!
The bolas spider is incredibly rare; Dr. Rayor had never before seen one in this area in all her 24 years of active spider collecting.
Bolas spiders were known to inhabit upstate NY, but they are always rare everywhere they are found.
Other than being rare, what makes bolas spiders so interesting?
Bolas spiders evolved from orb weavers who make a typical spiral orb web in the Family Araneidae. But the bolas no longer makes orb webs. Instead they twirl a single short line of silk that has a ball of glue at the end. The spiders emit pheromones that attract male moths looking for love. The moths fly into the glob of glue and are hauled up by the spider for a tasty dinner.
What is particularly impressive is that the bolas spider changes the pheremone over the course of a summer so that initially, when the spider is smaller, it lures in smaller moth species, and then changes to attract larger moth species later in the summer.
Incredibly, bolas spiders will also change the pheromones they produce during a single day so that they attract moths that fly early in the evening first, and then change pheromones to attract later-flying moths.
The behavior of bolas spiders is entirely unique in the animal kingdom!
Dr. Rayor brought the bolas spider to her lab where she laid two vase-shaped egg sacs! When she was close to death, she prepared her and the egg sacs to be displayed in a large museum exhibit on spiders currently traveling around North America.
Participants
Professors Linda Raynor and Cole Gilbert represented Team Spider, with specimens contributed by students from the Insect Phylogeny class, particularly Joe Giulian and Jake Gorneau.
Linda Rayor & Cole Gilbert’s mutual interest in spider behavior eventually led to their mutual interest in each other, and their wedding thank-you notes had a bride & groom cellar spider celebrating. They are currently writing a book on spider behavior for Harvard University Press.
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Species Found: 206
Cayuga Nature Center: 120
Trees, shrubs and vines: 44
Herbs: 69
Ferns: 7
Invasive: 11
Smith Woods: 151
Trees, shrubs and vines: 40
Herbs: 103
Ferns: 8
Invasive: 13
The present day landscape of the Cayuga Lake Basin reflects a long history of farming and land use. Early clearing of forest to create fields and pastures was followed by a period of agriculture that is still active in the areas where soils are deep and rich. On steep slopes where farming was impractical or where private tracts were left untouched, old-age hemlock and soaring tulip trees rise above diverse woodlands. Forest regrowth on abandoned, unproductive farmland has led to second growth stands of varying composition. These forests continue to produce timber, maple syrup, and increasingly, non-timber forest products such as mushrooms, wild fruits and herbs.
The vascular plants team recorded species both digitally (into an iPhone and iPad app) with images, as well as into notebooks. Longitude and latitude of every species location was captured with the digital images. They also collected some herbarium specimens for later identification and/or verification.
A BioBlitz provides an opportunity to capture a snapshot of biodiversity at a single site at a particular time. In practice, this effort forces close examination and intense study of what may be otherwise overlooked or easily dismissed. For vascular plants in the temperate zone, however, species’ life cycles may play out over a very brief or extended period in a growing season. Thus the plant diversity of a site cannot be fully known without conducting similar surveys at other times during the year.
The Eastern Deciduous forest harbors a variety of overstory trees. Although there are a few evergreen conifer species, all of the flowering tree species in this forest type are deciduous. Temperate forests tend to have high overstory dominance, with only a few species of large trees in a given locality, in contrast to the highly diverse overstory of tropical forests.
With just a few exceptions (e.g., red maple and basswood), most of the dominant trees in the deciduous forest are wind-pollinated, such as sugar maple, oaks, beeches, hickories and birches. Understory herbaceous plants and woody shrubs are typically more diverse in these forests, but variable as well, depending on site factors and overstory composition.
As many as sixteen different plant community types have been described for the Finger Lakes region based on species dominance and composition. Successional old fields may contain grasses and perennial forbs like goldenrod, or shrubby regrowth of native dogwood and hawthorn. Non-native shrub species may dominate these old fields: honeysuckle, multiflora rose and autumn olive are present in increasing numbers. These introduced shrubs are well-used by birds and small mammals for food and habitat, but tend to out-compete native species. Sugar maple, red maple and red oak are important hardwood species in second-growth forests. Sugar maple is dominant in good soils, whereas red maple is scattered throughout plant communities due to its tolerance for poor or wet soils. White pine co-occurs with another coniferous dominant, Eastern Hemlock, on the steep slopes and uplands surrounding the region’s many gorges.
Pathogens continue to change the structure and composition of the region's forests
Important tree species in the 20th century such as Chestnut, Elm, and, to a lesser extent, Beech, are no longer present in the forest overstory where they were once dominant or co-dominant with other hardwoods. The imminent decline of Eastern Hemlock and native ash species due to the actions of the Hemlock woolly adelgid and the emerald ash borer will contribute to the changing, but resilient, forest dynamic in years to come.
Invasive Species Are Of Great Concern For Both Terrestrial & Aquatic Ecosystems
The aggressive growth and ability to out-compete native species enables invasive non-natives to displace more desirable natives from habitats, with potentially detrimental effects on the systems they invade. In total there were thirteen plant species on the two sites which are considered to be invasive. Most of these (7 of 13) are non-native shrubs or vines, most often spread by birds that ingest the fruits and disperse the seeds.
Five types of invasive species were found in and around Smith Woods, including in its interior. One of the five, Cynanchum rossicum, pale swallowwort, has been increasing in the region. A relative of the milkweeds (Asclepias spp.), the species has wind-dispersed seed as well as a robust means of vegetative propagation. This species was not observed at Cayuga Nature Center, but it is most likely there as well.
Participants
The vascular plant team included botanists from Cornell, SUNY Cortland and the Ithaca community. Thanks to Kevin Nixon, Anna Stalter, Arieh Tal, Nathan Jud, Mike Hough, Aaron Iverson and Charles R. Smith.
Arieh Tal is an avid botanist and photographer of plants. He is a volunteer at the LH Bailey Herbarium and has spent many years botanizing in New York and New England. His ready knowledge helped power the plant team through the blitz!