The First Ano Pedina Bio-blitz at GSS2016

Alessandro Locacciato insect-hunting
during the First Ano Pedina bio-blitz

During the summer course in conservation biology, one of the exercises has always been a crash course in arthropods. Held by Gabor Lovei & Zoltan Elek, this consisted of a discussion about global biodiversity, after which the students were tasked to collect and photograph arthropods they can find, and they were identified. This year we changed the setup, and organised the first "bioblitz" – two teams competed who could find the most arthropod species during a given time. The students mostly used their smartphones and cameras, but others opted for more traditional methods of catching arthropods around the Palase Field Station. This First Ano Pedina Bio-blitz was won with 120 OTUs collected or documented (the other team only found 59 species). The share of beetles, normally around 40% of all species globally, was only 20-23% - and butterflies were overrepresented.