2013 season wrap-up!

from Andrea Williams, MMWD Vegetation Ecologist

The “Lakes Region” of Mount Tamalpais is as beautiful and diverse as it sounds, and the most-visited portion of our watershed lands. In 2013 we spent several days documenting that diversity and impact. With the contribution 65 dedicated volunteers and over 800 hours of time and effort, we once again made over 700 plant observations over the course of our blitz days! These observations represent over 200 taxa, including 25 not on MMWD’s species list; they are supported by nearly 350 specimens now curated in the California Academy of Science’s herbarium, by hundreds of records in iNaturalist and thousands of exquisite photographs. We documented weeds just coming into Marin: the first collections of Oriental hedge mustard (Sisymbrium orientale), African asparagus fern (Asparagus asparagoides), and woolly clover (Trifolium tomentosum) for the entire county! We found exciting wetland plants that were mysteriously not yet on MMWD’s species list: water plantain (Alisma triviale), whorled marsh pennywort (Hydrocotyle verticillata), and two species of waterpepper (Persicaria)! We owe these accomplishments to you: the team leaders, photographers, plant collectors, and data recorders who made our Saturday Bioblitz events the fun, inspiring, and productive days they were.

We're excited for the 2014 “West Side” field season, with trainings in February and survey dates starting in March! If you'd like to be a citizen scientist on our all-day bioblitz surveys, contact citizenscience@calacademy.org

You can also contribute photographs of of wildlife and plants observed in the water district by uploading your observations to this project page in iNaturalist.

Posted on September 27, 2013 06:13 PM by kestrel