A BioBlitz is a time-limited biological inventory whose goal is to find as many species of organisms as possible in a particular space. The National Park Service conducted the very first BioBlitz at Kenilworth Park in Washington D.C. in 1996. In 2013, Macaulay Honors College had its very first BioBlitz in Central Park as the opening event for its new Science Forward curriculum. Over 300 sophomores teamed up with about 40 scientists to find a total of 571 different species in the park, including a few that had never been seen before there. In 2014, our students and scientists focused on the Thain Family Forest in the New York Botanical Garden, which is the largest piece of old growth forest in New York City. We found 530 species at the NYBG BioBlitz, excluding our microbial diversity analysis. In 2015, Macaulay conducted a BioBlitz at Freshkills Park on Staten Island and found 320 species on what was once the world’s largest landfill. In 2016, we held our BioBlitz at Brooklyn Bridge Park, a new park built on reclaimed shipping piers. We completed a five-borough cycle with a BioBlitz at Alley Pond Park in Queens in 2017 and returned to Manhattan for a BioBlitz at Inwood Hill Park in 2018. In 2019, we had paired Brooklyn locations, Green-Wood Cemetery and the Gowanus Canal.
In 2020 and 2021, we made some adjustments due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ran completely remote BioBlitzes. Students collected data via iNaturalist from wherever they were and they got to interact with the scientists and naturalists who would have led our teams at an in-person BioBlitz through a series of “Meet the Virtual Taxon Leader” webinars. We returned to in-person events with our 2022 Randall’s Island BioBlitz.
The two main goals of the BioBlitz are to educate students about the science of ecology in the city and cataloguing as many species as possible in the given time period. Students get a transformational educational experience with real scientific data collection in a complex ecosystem and also contribute to the environmental monitoring efforts of their local area.
Press Links
2013 Central Park BioBltiz
Census of Central Park Finds New Tenants, New York Times
Biology in the Big Apple, Scientific American Guest Blog
Central Park Animals, New York Magazine
Science in the City and Critters in the Park, MetroFocus
2014 NYBG BioBlitz
BioBlitz at the New York Botanical Garden, Your Wildlife Blog
2015 Freshkills BioBlitz
Former Fresh Kills Landfill Breeding New Life, NY1
Dispatches from the BioBlitz, Urban Omnibus
A Look Back at the 2015 Freshkills Park Bioblitz, freshkillspark.org
From Behind the Mounds, freshkillspark.org
2016 Brooklyn Bridge Park BioBlitz
The Case for Citizen Science on Coastal Waters, CityLab
2017 Alley Pond Park BioBlitz
BioBlitz Highlights Alley Pond Ecosystem, Queens Chronicle
2018 Inwood hill Park BioBlitz
Beyond the Classroom, Urban U
2019 Green-wood Cemetery and Gowanus Canal BioBlitz
Macaulay Honors College students collect ecological data at Green-Wood Cemetery, News12 Brooklyn
