Bio Blitz
BioBlitz Santa Barbara
Conservation Counts
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
May 11-12, 2007
The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden announces the Central Coast's first-ever BioBlitz! Join us as we discover and celebrate the incredible biodiversity around us. The Botanic Garden is excited to bring BioBlitz Santa Barbara to the community and looks forward to involving community members and organizations in this important event. This is a wonderful opportunity to engage the public in understanding and appreciating the incredible diversity surrounding us, and to emphasize the importance of conservation measures to preserve this diversity. Interact with scientists and enjoy fun, educational activities as we discover together what this creative concept is all about!
What Is A BioBlitz?
BioBlitz is a quick intensive ecological survey meant to catalog as much biological diversity as possible in a concentrated period of time and defined area. Conducted since the mid-1990s, BioBlitzes bring botanists, entomologists, ornithologists, herpetologists, and many other "ologists," together with citizen-scientists to identify and document as many plants, insects, birds, bats, chipmunks, lizards, mushrooms, mice, and even bacteria as possible. A BioBlitz is a fun and engaging scientific and educational event that raises awareness of the incredible biodiversity that exists in our own backyard and the importance of conserving this diversity for a healthy and strong environment.
Why Are We Doing This?
Bioblitzes have been conducted in numerous locations throughout the nation to bring attention to the fact that biodiversity exists not only in exotic places like tropical rainforests and coral reefs, but everywhere. As the most biologically diverse state in the union and one of the world's 'hot spots' of threatened biodiversity, California offers tremendous opportunities for such valuable surveys yet few have been conducted here. The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden recognizes the scientific value of BioBlitz surveys and has identified an ecologically important area in the Central Coast that merits this scrutiny--Mission Creek. Measuring the biodiversity of just one small area of this important waterway and riparian corridor will illustrate to the public the incredible biological resources that exist in our own community, and will emphasize the importance of conservation measures to preserve that diversity. Additionally, we will produce a scientifically repeatable survey of a natural area that can be used as a baseline to document future changes (additions or losses) to the diversity of this ecosystem.
Where Are We Doing This?
BioBlitz Santa Barbara will survey as many species as possible in and around a section of Mission Creek during a 24-hour period. The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is situated near the headwaters of Mission Creek, a stretch of which runs through the Garden grounds. The creek, its bordering riparian zone and the canyon slopes above are relatively unimpacted and offer a natural ecosystem characteristic of the many canyons of the Santa Ynez Mountains. This reach of Mission Creek and the surrounding lands in the Botanic Garden make up approximately 10 acres and will serve as the study site for BioBlitz Santa Barbara.
Mission Canyon is one of several parallel drainages from the Santa Ynez Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. At one time it provided significant steelhead trout habitat and steelhead can still be found in some of the lower reaches. The headwaters of Mission Creek originate in the Los Padres National Forest and are relatively protected from human impact. However, as the waterway flows through downtown Santa Barbara it increasingly develops the character of an urban water course, including pollution from residential and commercial sources, and channelization for flood control. BioBlitz Santa Barbara will document the surprising biological diversity of this relatively unimpacted reach of Mission Creek.
What Will We Do With This Information?
The results of BioBlitz Santa Barbara will provide us with an inventory of Mission Creek and the riparian corridor's biodiversity that will serve as a baseline for monitoring species change in the years to come. This baseline will provide important information about the riparian ecology naturally occurring in this relatively pristine area, and will be of great value in efforts to restore the creek habitats further downstream and in other Santa Barbara creeks. Through the scientific and educational components of BioBlitz Santa Barbara, the public will leave with a new appreciation of the diversity of life that makes up their own "personal ecosystem." We will also convey the important message of conservation and how maintaining environmental quality relates to personal well-being.
Educational Opportunities
Although scientists and naturalists will perform much of the survey, BioBlitz Santa Barbara welcomes the general public. Citizen-scientists will be invited to join survey teams and will receive appropriate training. Educational opportunities will include both children and adult programming, as well as materials that will continue to be useful in schools beyond the event. Educational programs will include displays, demonstrations, and hands-on activities. We will present the educational messages in diverse ways that will be engaging for all ages. These activities may range from lectures and tours to specimen preparation to computer simulations of ecosystem dynamics and food web interactions.
Outcomes
Our overall objective is to create a learning environment that will demonstrate the complexity of life in our local landscape and will stimulate public involvement and interest in conservation initiatives. BioBlitz Santa Barbara will:
- Provide an inventory of biological diversity that will serve as a baseline for monitoring species change in an undisturbed landscape at the wildland-urban interface in Southern California.
- Engage the excitement of scientific investigation and encourage pursuit of scientific explanations to natural phenomena.
- Stimulate public interest in the diversity of life that makes up our own "personal ecosystem."
- Develop public understanding of how conservation and maintaining environmental quality relate to personal well-being.
- Inspire people to seek ways in which society and individuals can achieve conservation and environmental quality objectives.
Tangible Products
The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden sees BioBlitz Santa Barbara as more than just a one-time event. We are committed to making a lasting impact on the community through our efforts. We will:
- Produce a final report documenting the biota inventoried and the educational accomplishments of the event. (This final report will archive data that will provide the basis of future monitoring efforts.)
- Create Santa Barbara Botanic Garden tours and educational materials that will continue the lessons and accomplishments of BioBlitz Santa Barbara.
- Design and produce continuing educational materials that can be used in classrooms as well as in adult programs (e.g. BioBlitz in My Backyard kits, teacher lesson plans, etc).
- Produce horticultural outreach materials that encourage use of native plants in home landscapes and demonstrate the benefits of native plants in sustaining the complex web of life in our local ecosystem.
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