By Gabriella Vukman
In order to protect the biodiversity of eastern Victoria, the Yarra Ranges Council is participating in the Bio Blitz competition.
Open to any Yarra Ranges, Casey and Baw Baw residents (see list below for other participating shires), the competition’s purpose is to document the local flora and fauna in order to gather data that can be used to protect our many species.
Climate and Nature team member Suzanne Burville identifies the opportunity for locals to take part in the research of their home.
“Ordinary people can go out and take photos of flora, fauna and fungi,” Ms Burville said.
The competition opens 1 September and will run until the end of the month.
Not only does this competition aim to record as many species as possible, it is also a way of uniting the community in celebration of the beauty, biodiversity and conservation of our local area.
During this Biodiversity Blitz competition, participants snap photos of any form of native biota, this includes insects, plants, legumes, fungi, animals and any living organism. These images are then uploaded by entrants to the iNaturalist app or website.
“Last year during our Bio Blitz month of September …6076 observations were added to the project.”
To get involved, download the iNaturalist app, create an account, join the Yarra Ranges Bio Blitz 2023 project and start snapping away.
The Bio Blitz competition started around four years ago with the City of Dandenong, who invited other shires to join in.
Verifying the photos that are sent in is a calculated process. Being an Artificial Intelligence platform, iNaturalist identifies the uploaded pictures automatically, using AI. The next step in the process is for the system-recognised species to be verified by human experts.
Once someone else has verified the species in the photo, the submission becomes “research grade” and then becomes accessible to scientists and researchers alike.
“The AI on it does an absolute amazing job. I’ve uploaded some pretty ordinary photos…of… birds that are obscured by leaves and …it pretty much gets it right,” Ms Burville said.
Exciting discoveries surface from community science projects such as this.
“Some species that have thought to be extinct in specific areas have been found through citizen science projects like this.”
“You might be up in the Yarra Ranges and you snap a little bug or something… it could be that that species was thought to be extinct in that area,” the Climate and Nature team member said.
Encouraging participation, Yarra Ranges Council conducts events such as nature walks to introduce people to the Biodiversity Blitz and encourage usage of the iNaturalist application. The Bird Walk and Talk on September 2 is a particularly popular affair.
“We’re…helping them contribute and that’s…the start of their journey.”
Whilst encouraging participation in the form of uploads is vital, Ms Burville said “sometimes the photos won’t get verified”.
Seeing as the reviewing system is entirely voluntary through the platform, the more discrete species such as insects, bugs and fungi are harder and less likely to be verified. Another consideration about this particular type of project being run locally, is that for many intricate species there “is no one expert enough in the field,” Ms Burville said.
The good news is that any member of the community can be an expert and people can be invited to verify the posts of others.
“You get people that just love certain species…[that’s] their passion.”
Rendering research more accessible, is significantly changing the game in science.
Ms Burville said, “[locals are] actually gathering all this data that scientists could never possibly get.”
Yarra Ranges Biodiversity Blitz website: https://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Experience/Events/Biodiversity-Blitz-2023
iNaturalist website: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/biodiversity-blitz-2023-melbourne
List of participating cities and shires;
Baw Baw Shire Council
Bayside City Council
Cardinia Shire
City of Casey
City of Greater Dandenong
City of Kingston
City of Knox
Frankston City Council
Mornington Peninsula Shire
Yarra Ranges
.
