September 13, 2014

The Onondaga Lake Bioblitz Ends

The Onondaga Lake Bioblitz is over. The project will remain open till midnight, as people are still uploading their observations. As of the results presentation, over 430 species of organisms had been found in and around the lake, with more still being identified. This is just a small percentage of the species that ESF's scientists believe are there, but considering the rain and cold weather that drove many species (including humans) into cover, it was still an excellent result!

The Onondaga Lake Bioblitz will help researchers to establish a new baseline to measure the continuing recovery of Onondaga Lake. Thanks to everyone who participated, scientists, organizers, sponsors and volunteers alike. You have contributed to an important endeavor that will assist in the long-term environmental health of central New York. We couldn't have done it without you!

Posted on September 13, 2014 10:41 PM by suny-esf suny-esf | 0 comments | Leave a comment

September 12, 2014

Welcome to the bioblitz!

The Onondaga Lake Bioblitz begins today! Welcome, and thank you to everyone who is participating. We're very excited for this, as it is a rare chance to do such an extensive evaluation of Onondaga Lake's biota and get a sense of how the lake's ecosystem is recovering.

For full information about the bioblitz and schedule, visit the bioblitz website. The schedule of activities will also be posted at the two staging areas: Onondaga Lake Visitors Center on the west shore, and Bay View Tent in the Willow Bay picnic area on the east shore. The staging areas will also feature displays of specimens and activities for the public, so do stop in and say hi!

A downloadable map of the bioblitz is available for your convenience.

You can follow @SUNYESFAlumni on Twitter for live news and updates of the bioblitz. We'll be sharing some of the exciting findings by our participants to the public. We invite you to also share your own photos and comments via social media! Just include the hashtag #esfbioblitz in your post so that people will be able to find them when they search the hashtag.

We are using iNaturalist to collect the species observations of our participants. If you have a cell phone, you can download the iNaturalist app to upload your own observations. Volunteers will also be stationed with group leaders to assist participants in posting observations, or to upload observations for those who don't have phones.

Notes for using iNaturalist:
· Do tap the ‘sync’ option once you have entered your observations on iNat so they appear on the website.

· Feel free to tally as many occurrences for each species as you’d like – the species tally will still only reflect each new species.

· Note there is a 2-3 minute latency between syncing your observation on your smart phone and it appearing on the iNat website – if you don’t see your observation appear immediately on the iNat website it’s just trickling its way through some server farm in California!

Posted on September 12, 2014 04:11 PM by suny-esf suny-esf | 0 comments | Leave a comment

Archives