Whip out your smart phone, snap a photo of a frog or lizard, and you could deliver crucial informational about the hopping and crawling creatures whose numbers are declining worldwide.
This month, UC Berkeley and Stanford University researchers helped launch the second phase of a “BioBlitz” race to photograph every amphibian and reptile species — about 16,500 in all — and record their locations with the camera’s GPS.
The campaign’s success relies on amateur photographers everywhere in the world taking pictures in places scientists have neither the money nor the time to visit. The experts review the photos online.
“(Scientists) are working away trying to get papers written and so forth and might not have a lot of time to spend in the field,” said Gary Sharlow, manager of lifelong learning at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, one of the organizations supporting the BioBlitz.
“And now you’ve got this army of civilians out there doing the work for you,” he said. “It gives us a much bigger picture when you have that many more sets of eyes out in the world.”
Since its June launch, Global Amphibian BioBlitz amateur photographers have posted photos of 10 percent of the world’s 7,000 amphibian species Among the revelations delighting scientists:
The quick success with frogs launched a second campaign this month — the Global Reptile Blitz to record all 9,500 reptile species worldwide.
Habitat loss, climate change, fungal disease and other factors imperils many amphibian and reptile species, and getting a grip on where they live is a first step to protect them.
“They’re going to be disappearing from a lot of places, and they’re going to be appearing in new places,” as habitats change with rising global temperatures, said Scott Loarie, a BioBlitz coordinator and Stanford climate change researcher.
Loarie said satellites have done a thorough job tracking how deforestation, prolonged droughts, agriculture and other factors are changing forests, fields and deserts, but satellites cannot possibly peer close enough to track animals.
Nature enthusiasts exploring new regions and even vacationers’ snapshots can fill that critical gap.
Both the Global Reptile and the Global Amphibian BioBlitz are powered by a website called iNaturlist.org, developed by some UC Berkeley students. They teamed with Stanford researchers and conservation organizations to expand it.
iNaturalist.org relies on the public’s enthusiasm for sharing photos on Facebook, Flickr and other social networking sites.
When people post the photos with GPS coordinates and time of observation, other iNaturalist.org users help identify unknown animals. Scientists note if the photo reveals anything unusual, such as a rare species or an animal outside its typical range. “People love to share photos and they love to share their experience,” Loarie said. “But this really turns it into real data for science and conservation.
“This is one of the most exciting things to happen to biodiversity science in a long time.”
Suzanne Bohan covers science. Contact her at 510-262-2789. Follow her at Twitter.com/suzbohan.
JOINING THE BIOBLITZ
To learn more about the Global Reptile BioBlitz and the Global Amphibian BioBlitz, visit iNaturalist.org and select the Projects page.
