Wrap Up 2023

Great Southern BioBlitz 2023 complete!

Hi everyone, Jo here. As Nick had to duck away unexpectedly I’m helping out doing this wrap up, let me know if anything seems incorrect.

At the time of BioBlitz wrapping up we came 2nd in the Southern Hemisphere for number of observed species, and 5th for number of observations!! Such an incredible effort by everyone, including Nick Lambert who came 1st for number of observed species in the Southern Hemisphere overall! A big congratulations to everyone who participated and helped identify. We demonstrated not only the growth of citizen science in this area, but also the quality of observations people here produce. The more I learn about our area the more I want to know so I believe next year will be just as successful :)

A message from Nick from last year which seems perfect to say again: A huge thankyou to everyone who participated from our zone, particularly those of you who downloaded and used the iNaturalist app for the first time. We hope that you enjoyed your day(s) exploring local natural environments and hopefully learning a thing or two about the organisms that live there. Please continue to submit any interesting sightings you come across, as they may one day become an important record.
As a whole, the fourth instalment of the Great Southern BioBlitz was once again a great success. 1000 additional people participated, in total 7144 participants from the Southern Hemisphere participated this year, with a total of nearly 230,000 sightings of 26,000 different species that have been identified so far. All seen within just 4 days!

This area’s results-

Observations: 5th (6th 2022 & 7th 2021)
Species: 2nd (5th 2022 & 2021)
Observers: 19th (43rd 2022 & 42nd 2021)
It's wonderful to see an increase in each of these numbers which can only mean good things for our local environment

As usual, this region outdid itself and was able to compete with the larger and more populous regions, some with 200-300+ participants each compared to our less than one hundred. This year Nambucca Shire was included with Bellingen and Coffs, encompassing nearly the entire volcano crater we call home. This region seemed keen to show off its beautiful diversity, from coastal heathlands to the Antarctic Beech forests of the mountains. A little spring rain to kick us off may have hindered observation collection were it not for the tenacity of our local BioBlitz participants. Indeed, the rain seemed to play in our favour as insects, arachnids, amphibians and fungi were out in force. See below for a breakdown of observations and statistics.

-Participants and Identifiers

We had more observers and more identifiers this year. Interestingly the overall ratio of identifiers compared to observers for the whole event is about 4:7 respectively, however for our area there were more than 4 times the number of identifiers than observers (around 5:1). This seems to indicate the interesting observations we are achieving here and also the broad network of naturalists needed to help get these identified.

Thanks so much to all of our observers during the event, here are the top 20 this year:
@nicklambert @nathanael_green @adrian2370 @lillianclementine @possumpete @jo-armytage @coolduck @coop14 @quinkin @urungaroger @jane508 @ happywombat @ros_coy @kimwin @clairecottage @matthewsparrius @shells4fun @kmackau @doncooper @isie

A huge thank you to our identifiers, all 497 of you! Our top identifiers this year were:
@quinkin @alx4mtmel @nathanael_green @ adrian2370 @nicklambert @jo-armytage @ben_travaglini @urungaroger @thebeachcomber @george_seagull @coolduck @benkurek @coop14 @pennywort_man @leoncrang @lynsh @dustaway @torhek @kmackau @borisb

-Sightings by category

Previous years wrap-up in brackets at time of writing (2022) [2021]

Plants – 3770 sightings of 851 different species (3286/765) [1345 / 571]
Insects – 1792 sightings of 687 different species (1433/572) [994 / 480]
Arachnids – 361 sightings of 88 different species (144/59) [99 / 45]
Reptiles – 89 sightings of 27 different species (37/15) [38 / 19]
Mammals – 54 sightings of 16 different species (32/13) [29 / 11]
Birds – 662 sightings of 138 different species (601/132) [457 / 125]
Amphibians- 75 sightings of 17 different species
Molluscs – 718 sightings of 257 different species (895/291) [885 / 317]
Fish – 49 sightings of 28 different species (61/44) [98 / 73]

We more than doubled our reptile observations and nearly doubled the number of reptile species from last year which was great to see. Our stats for marine organisms such as molluscs species were down due to various contributing factors but most other species counts increased, including arachnids (of which nearly 30 more species were recorded) and both plant and insect categories which have around 85 additional species each. Our fungi observations and species both trebled, very interesting. Thanks again rain and dedicated naturalists :)

-Most observed species (2022 is in brackets)

Austral Sarsaparilla (Smilax australis) – 38 observations (28)
Scentless Rosewood (Synoum glandulosum) – 36 observations (28)
Cheese Tree (Glochidion ferdinandi) – 32 observations (33)
Blueberry Ash (Elaeocarpus reticulatus) 29 observations (24)
Creek Sandpaper fig (Ficus coronata) 29 observations (20)
Sweet Morinda (Gynochthodes jasminoides) – 21 observations (31)

All plant life typical of rainforest, wet sclerophyll, and temperate forests.
The Creek Sandpaper Fig has jumped up the list considerably. Something interesting is changing the date of BioBlitz has possibly been a contributing factor to the Caper White being excluded from our most observed species list (last year this was the number one most observed species, this year there was only a single individual observed across the area). I feel this demonstrates that recording even very common life is important when identifying trends and understanding an ecosystem.

-Threatened Species

We had 159 sightings of 53 different threatened species in our area, how incredible over just 4 days!

The Pouched Frog (Assa darlingtoni) was recorded by @nicklambert and the very rare and beautiful Stuttering Frog (Mixophyes balbus) was seen by @clairecottage. New to this year’s threatened species list were the Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove (Ptilinopus regina) seen by @shaunbamford, a Comb-crested Jacana (Irediparra gallinac) by @richardshirky, and a Bar-Tailed Godwit by @nicklambert. New mammals were a Squirrel Glider (Petaurus norfolcensis) observed by trail cam and camera by @happywombat and also 3 sightings of the Parma Wallaby (Notamacropus parma) by @clairecottage. The Leichhardtia longiloba by @nicklambert and Snow Gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora) by @ros_coy were great new plants added this year. It’s great to know these species are being looked out for and looked after by locals.

-Range of Observations

We used the extra scope of our zone to the full extent.
The northernmost observation was: Pink Matchheads (Comesperma ericinum) in flower by @possumpete
The most Easterly observation was: threatened Lord Coral (Micromussa lordhowensis) by @adrian2370
The southernmost observation this year was: Creek Sandpaper fig (Ficus coronata) in fruit by @lee4551
The observation furthest west was: the Tall Potato Orchid (Gastrodia procera) by @roberthumphries which is completely new to this area on iNaturalist

Fantastic reach and range of environments, thank you everyone for participating!

All stats and sightings for the Coffs/Bellingen region can be found on our iNaturalist project by clicking this link:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/great-southern-bioblitz-2023-coffs-harbour-region
Highlights are still on their way :)

We’ll finish with something Nick said last year:
It’s important to remember that each of our 8259 observations was photographed, uploaded by one of our 97 participants and then identified within the time period. Such an impressive feat from a small number of people. This provides a great snapshot in time of our local biodiversity and hopefully the up-to-date data generated from this event and other local sightings will be of use for future research in the area.

Thanks once again for all the hard work and many hours and countless photos. Hope to see everyone back next year. See you then if not before!

Posted on December 15, 2023 08:21 PM by jo-armytage