Citizen scientists conduct nature ‘audit’
Citizen scientists in southern Africa made more than 100 000 observations during the Great Southern Bioblitz 2024, contributing valuable data on local biodiversity.
The event, now in its fifth year, gives citizen scientists armed with mobile phones and buckets of enthusiasm the opportunity to participate in a scientific survey and collect site-specific data over a four-day period.
Organisers said throughout this period participants held bioblitzes, outings, events and spent their time diving, climbing, walking and crawling to capture the information with their phones. The data was uploaded to the iNaturalist website, which others then spent hours identifying the observations during the two weeks after the event.
Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan from the South African National Biodiversity Institute said that between September 20 and 23, 45 places (towns, regions and countries) across 16 southern African countries participated.
“Our participation in GSB annually brings much fun being in nature, while feeding foundational biodiversity data to our national datasets, especially that of endemic, threatened and protected species. More importantly, GSB data is being analysed by local government agencies responsible for managing and reporting on biodiversity at the municipal scale.”
Parbhoo Mohan said 111 457 observations representing 10 735 species were made by 2 048 observers.
“Forty eight percent of observations made were identified. While we understand that a proportion of observations were not of good enough photo quality to ascertain identification to species level, with time those keen on surveys can only improve their photography skills,” she said.
The Great Southern Bioblitz was established by a group of bioblitz enthusiasts in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
This year the number of casual observations (those made of organisms in cultivation/ captivity) dropped from 4.9% last year to 3.6%, reflecting that participants were surveying natural areas, said Parbhoo Mohan.
She said during the event, 654 species of conservation concern were recorded.
“These are records as per the South African Red List Plants and Animals Project which does not have all taxonomic groups listed,” said Parbhoo Mohan.
During the bioblitz 6 912 plant species were observed. A total of 1 570 insect species were observed with the Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) topping the list.
Citizen scientists noted 519 bird species with the most observed being the helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris). The most invasive species seen were the prickly pear cactus, Port Jackson wattle and lantana. Elegant gumbush and glitter jumble reed were among the most threatened species snapped.
Parbhoo Mohan said the Overstrand in the Western Cape topped the leaderboard for making most observations with 14 565, while eThekwini came ninth with 3 669 observations. KZN had a number of observers taking part: eThekwini 77, KZN Midlands 43, KZN South Coast 28 and Zululand 27.
Most common observations include:
Threatened species
