An Additional Bioblitz Competition in Northwest Georgia Yields New County Records

摘要

Due to an earlier bioblitz competition's success at documenting new county records in the Talladega Uplands of Georgia in the spring of 2007 (Graham et al. 2007), we organized an additional contest in the same region during the following fall. To increase participant turnout and enthusiasm, the second bioblitz competition was touted as a rematch between the participants from Auburn University and the University of Georgia. As a result of this survey (mostly 5-7 October 2007), we documented 25 new county records (Jensen et al. 2008), surpassing the first competition's total. Severe drought conditions appeared to increase our success, as amphibians and reptiles were frequently found under moist cover objects at drying bodies of water. Localities were recorded using handheld GPS units with datum settings of WGS 84 and confirmed using Google Earth. The results presented below illustrate how the spirit of competition can be exploited for quick and useful presence-absence surveys, and the utility of surveying during multiple seasons.