Hi bioblitzers,

Thanks to Natalie Lemanski for summarizing the data for this year’s Personal Bioblitz, the ninth ever. Here are the results! (Note that the numbers of species on the home page of the project will change, because more species will be identified as we go along. These numbers are the official numbers for this year). Our project page on iNaturalist is: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/personal-bioblitz-2022

Congratulations to the top winners, every species and person, but also to all of the rest of you that together helped us break the record, AGAIN, for most observations and species. Every observation and species is important for the totality of the project and for science. All five of the top species are common in Eastern North America and every sighting counts. We also had things that were rare and only seen by a few.

A few things of note – 4 people managed to see over 1000 species in 2.5 months! Women are overrepresented, and we have some mega-iNaturalist-users in this project. Over 3100 worldwide members on iNaturalist helped to identify species in this project - with user @sadawolk being by far the most prolific with her knowledge – thanks Sandy Wolkenberg!

RESULTS 2022
Total observations: 70,461 (A new record, beating last year’s record of 68,914!)

Total species: 9,197 (Another new record!)

Observers: 113

Some fun facts:

1. Plants win again as the most observed taxonomic group, accounting for 62% of all observations.
2. 26% of observations were from New Jersey, the home location of the Personal Bioblitz (down from last year).
3. Observations came from 23 different countries. We have some worldly naturalists!
4. 3,066 different people helped identify the project observations.

5. An IUCN near-threatened species (Eastern Hemlock) made the top 5 list this year.
   Most observations:

6. Sara Rall (srall) from New Jersey, USA, 10,140 observations (last year’s top observer is on top again! Sarah is also the 4th top observer in the world.)
7. Nick Kleinschmidt (nick2524) from New Hampshire, USA, 6,016 observations
8. Barbara L Wilson (sedgequeen) from Oregon, USA, 5,729 observations
9. Susan Hewitt (susanhewitt) from New York, USA, 4,989 observations (invertebrate specialist, and the 8th top observer in the world.)

10. Misha Zitser (zitserm) from New York, USA, 4,469 observations (an iNaturalist member since 2020, congrats on making the top 5 list!)
    Most species observed:

11. Annika Lindqvist (annikaml) living in Texas, USA, 1,170 species (retaking the top spot again and breaking her record from last year!)
12. Barbara L Wilson (sedgequeen) from Oregon, USA, 1,023 species
13. Alan Weakley (whiteoak) from North Carolina, USA, 1,017 species (another expert botanist joins the top 5 list! No wonder plants rule the Bioblitz 😉)
14. Sara Rall (srall) from New Jersey, USA, 1,001 species

15. Sarah Kelsey (botanylicious) from Georgia, USA, 979 species
    Most species that were not observed by anyone else:

16. Annika Lindqvist (annikaml) living in Texas, USA, 426 unique species
17. Nick Lambert (nicklambert) from Australia, 386 unique species
18. Barbara L Wilson (sedgequeen) from Oregon, USA, 242 unique species
19. Alan Weakley (whiteoak) from North Carolina, USA, 237 unique species

20. Jason Grant (jasonrgrant) from Switzerland, 226 unique species
    Most frequently observed species:

21. American Beech, 814 observations
22. Hairy Bittercress, 519 observations
23. American Robin, 435 observations
24. Red Maple, 433 observations

25. Eastern Hemlock, 374 observations
    And, the number of observations on iNaturalist for New Jersey, just passed 1 million! When the Personal Bioblitz started on iNaturalist, there were 1000 observations in New Jersey. For a list of the most observed New Jersey species ever, look here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=51&subview=table&view=species

Thanks again to all of you, to the leadership team this year who helped curate the project on iNaturalist, and have a wonderful summer (winter in Australia) with lots of new observations and cool finds. See you in 2023 for the 10th Personal Bioblitz, starting at March 1 as usual. Mark your calendars!

Happy bioexploration times!

Lena Struwe, Rutgers University
Founder and organizer of the Personal Bioblitz

PS. Feel free to sign up for our mailing list [https://lists.rutgers.edu/mm3/mailman3/lists/personal_bioblitz.email.rutgers.edu/], and/or join our Facebook group [https://www.facebook.com/groups/407169086112609] to stay informed about next year’s Personal Bioblitz.

So, you did it all again, broke all records!

Personal Bioblitz 2022 Results:

70460 observations (NEW RECORD!)

9189 species (NEW RECORD!)

113 participants (not a new record, but the record is 114 from 2021, so we just needed two more participants to break the record)

3048 identifiers (NEW RECORD! This is the number of people that helped identify what we all saw)

More detailed statistics about who and what will be summarized soon and sent out next week.

Fantastic everyone!!!

Lena Struwe

There is less than 2 weeks left for the 2022 Personal Bioblitz, which ends on May 15. Then you have 1 week to upload and ID all the things you saw March 1 - May 15 on iNaturalist, but start now..!

If you are like me you have photos in your camera, on your phone, and know some common things you see everyday but not yet have acted upon as observations (hello weeds! Canada geese! human! White oak!). Get them uploaded so we can see what our maximum together-data can be this year.

Currently we have
47252 observations (wow)
7209 species (will be break 8000?)
and 106 people are participating.

Every observation counts!

There has been some movement on the leaderboards, and you can check that out on the project's home page. More things can still happen! We have many people with over 700 species so far, impressive! Sara Rall @srall has a secure lead in number of observations, not surprisingly. We are also grateful to Sandy Wolkenberger @sadawolk who has identified over 4500 observations within our project!

After May 22 we will summarize the data after cleaning up any problematic data. Please do your part by avoiding to report cultivated plants, pets, and other non-allowed observations (see our website for full info). The final results will be posted on the project page on iNaturalist, in our Facebook group, and sent out via our mailing list after June 1.

Keep iNatting, you never know what you might find!

Take care!
Lena

The iNaturalist City Nature Challenge is coming up in two weeks! (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022) It takes place April 29-May 2 and cities compete against one another to see who can make the most observations of the most species and with the most participants. Any observation made on those days within the boundaries of one of the "cities" counts toward the project, unlike the Personal Bioblitz, you do not need to add it by hand.

I will be helping New York (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-new-york-city) and Philly (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/city-nature-challenge-2022-greater-philadelphia-area). If you are in the New Jersey area, I am hosting three "meet-ups" where folks gather at an interesting park and then go around looking for observations and sharing interesting finds for an hour or two.

Saturday, April 30 at 10 am at Conference House Park, 243 Satterlee St. Staten Island, NY
Sunday, May 1 at 10 am at Whitesbog Historic Village, 120 West Whites Bog Rd., Browns Mills, NJ (Burlington Co.)
Monday, May 2 at 9 am at Giving Pond, 1068 River Rd., Upper Black Eddy, PA (Bucks Co.)

If you can make any of them, I would love to have you. At any rate, I hope you can find a city near you to observe in over the weekend, or can help in the following week to ID others' observations.

Sara Rall

Wow, you have been so active! We have had a chilly spring here in the Northeast, but now I hope the spring explosion of green and living critters are coming soon. But look at all the things that have been reported from around the world.

As of right now:

24441 observations (maybe on track for a record or near-record) - record is 68914 observations from 2021, and there is a lot of time left to report more things.

4728 species (record was set in 2021 with 8844 species), get all those common and rare things around the world reported.

90 people have reported observations in 2022 (114 reported in 2021, and we have 128 people who signed up for 2022 - every observatiion counts!

Keep the cool finds rolling in! We have observations from many parts of the world, and lets celebrate our everyday biodiversity by sharing it here on iNaturalist.

Take care!
Lena

HI all - make sure all your observations added to this project were seen within the time period March 1 - May 15, 2022. RIght now we have several observations that were seen before this project started, so the numbers are not correct.

And we got our 100th participant this year! Already 48 of you have uploaded sightings of species, and so many more to come.

Species and observations are rolling in, despite the chilly weather here in New Jersey. Thankfully we have participants in many other parts of the world, like southern and western USA, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, etc.

Currently after 1 week - Over 1200 species, over 3600 observations, and 436 users of iNaturalist around the world have helped identify the species we have seen.

Remember all wild and naturalized species counts. Go out with your phone or camera and get those common species before you forget them for the spring flowers and arriving migrating birds. Here in New Jersey the spring peepers (a kind of tiny frog) are having big choruses now, and you can easily hear them, but rarely see them. But sounds count too!

I am about to take out my microscope and start to look for tardigrades in mosses. Tardigrades have only been reported 3 times from New Jersey on iNaturalist, but are supposed to be everywhere.

Take care and good luck!
Lena

And here we go - Day 1 of this year's Personal Bioblitz! Here is an article from Rutgers about it:

https://sebsnjaesnews.rutgers.edu/2022/03/the-annual-personal-bioblitz-connects-people-with-nature-will-it-break-records-again-this-year/

Good luck, and happy species looking!
Lena