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Project aims to document species in Smokies

Two deer graze in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Among the many ways the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year is by hosting a series of events called BioBlitzes that focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area, such as Cades Cove, in a designated amount of time.
Two deer graze in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Among the many ways the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year is by hosting a series of events called BioBlitzes that focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area, such as Cades Cove, in a designated amount of time. Two deer graze in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Among the many ways the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year is by hosting a series of events called BioBlitzes that focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area, such as Cades Cove, in a designated amount of time.

By The Knoxville News Sentinel 2 min read

BIOBLITZ

What: The Tennessee Geographic Alliance and North Carolina Geographic Alliance — both affiliates of the National Geographic Society — are helping to fund and plan the BioBlitzes in the Smokies.When: Friday, April 22, and Thursday, May 12To volunteer: To learn more about volunteering for these and other Discover Life in America projects, contact Todd Witcher at 865-430-4757, or email at todd@dlia.org.

Among the many ways the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year is by hosting a series of events called BioBlitzes that focus on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area in a designated amount of time.

When it comes to BioBlitzes, Discover Life in America wrote the book. In 1998, the nonprofit launched the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, an ambitious attempt to catalog every life form in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Over the past 18 years, a small army of scientists and volunteers have documented 19,250 species in the park, 970 of which are new to science, and 9,140 of which are new records for the park.

On April 22 and May 12 DLIA will coordinate two BioBlitzes in the Smokies, both focusing on native pollinators. Participants – many of them students – will catch and release insect pollinators and identify them with the help of experts. Specimens not identified on site will be photographed, and those images will be posted on iNaturalist, an online social network of biologists and citizen scientists, for identification.

Read more at our news partner’s website, knoxnews.com.