REGIONAL- A western dusky slug, black knot fungus, and shield lichens stole the spotlight for a week from Voyageurs National Park’s usual moose, wolf, and loon headliners.
They were among 357 species documented when participants in the park’s first weeklong BioBlitz turned their attention to the small, strange, and easily overlooked organisms all around them.
The Aug. 1-9 event generated 1,289 observations from 42 contributors, exceeding the expectations of Voyageurs Conservancy Community Engagement Coordinator Brandon Güell, who organized the event in partnership with the National Park Service.
“My goal was that if we got over 1,000 observations, that would be phenomenal,” Güell said. “And I was only thinking we’d get 200, maybe 250 species.”
While the numbers provided one measure of success, Güell said the larger accomplishment was getting people involved and teaching them to see the park’s diverse ecosystem in a different way.
“The way that I’m measuring the success is the engagement that we got,” he said. “Just introducing the community and the visitors and the residents to this citizen science effort was really rewarding.”
Most BioBlitzes Güell had previously participated in were single-day events held at one location, but this one was longer by design.
“A BioBlitz is really just this communal, concentrated effort to document and record as many species as possible within a specific place and time,” Güell said. “We decided to make this a weeklong effort to give guests and visitors and residents and staff and scientists and pretty much everyone the opportunity to do this at their leisure.”
Participants used the free iNaturalist app to photograph organisms, with a phone’s built-in GPS noting where they were found. While organized programs were held at visitor centers and established trails, a map of the observations shows contributions from well beyond the easily accessible areas of the water-based park.
“We had a lot of people just on their own take the initiative to make these observations,” Güell said. “People were getting out on the water, visiting some of the small islands and less-visited sites, and making observations on their own.”
The busiest day came on Aug. 4, when a morning Forest Plants and Flora Hike at the Blind Ash Bay Trailhead was followed by a nighttime moth and insect program at the Crane Lake Visitor Center.
Fifteen observers submitted 490 observations that day, accounting for 38 percent of the BioBlitz total. The day produced event-high totals of 336 plant observations, 99 fungi observations, and 30 insect observations.
About a dozen people participated in the morning hike, where Güell and a park ranger encouraged them to look beyond the most conspicuous plants and animals. Participants found tiny mushrooms, lichens, slugs, insects, and other organisms they might ordinarily have walked past.
“One of the biggest successes of the entire BioBlitz is that we were really able to show our participants that every single observation matters,” Güell said. “You can walk for 30 seconds on any trail in Voyageurs National Park, or really anywhere in the wilderness, and you’re going to walk past 100 different species, probably.”
Even repeated observations of the same species can be useful, he said. A plant documented near a pond and again farther uphill provides information about the different habitats where it occurs.
Participants also learned that they did not need an expensive camera to contribute. Modern phones can capture identifying details in everything from leaves and wildflowers to insects, mosses, lichens, and fungi.
That attention to plants and other organisms often overshadowed by the park’s marquee wildlife was reflected in the final numbers. Participants submitted 879 plant observations, 158 fungi and lichen observations, and 110 insect observations. Together, those categories accounted for 89 percent of everything recorded.
“When you think about diversity, you think of moose, otters, loons, walleye, whatever, and those species are critical for sure, and they’re really cool,” Güell said. “But none of those things can exist without the plants and fungi and small insects and small animals and lichen and moss and all of these things that are just so overlooked.”
Not every scheduled event left the same footprint in the data. An Aug. 5 aquatic-life program was scheduled at the Kabetogama Visitor Center, but only 22 observations were submitted that day, 20 of them by one person.
Güell said several park employees were reassigned to wildfire response during the BioBlitz, forcing last-minute changes. The aquatic program “fell through the cracks a bit,” he said.
Among the event’s more notable finds was a Laurentian tiger beetle observed along the Black Bay Ski Trail. The beetle is listed by the Minnesota DNR as a species of special concern and is known only in northeastern Minnesota and portions of Ontario and Manitoba.
An olive-sided flycatcher was spotted during an Aug. 8 birding hike at Beaver Pond Overlook. The disappearing species, known for its loud “Quick! Three beers!” call, is identified by the DNR as a species of greatest conservation need.
But Güell, whose scientific background includes herpetology, was particularly delighted when a participant spotted a juvenile red-bellied snake on the trail.
“I haven’t seen a snake in Voyageurs National Park my entire time here, and I have an affinity for snakes,” he said. “My advisor used to say that every snake is a gift.”
Although the nine-day event is over, work on its observations continues. Fifty-three people joined the iNaturalist project, 42 submitted observations, and 160 people are helping to confirm initial iNaturalist AI-assisted identifications.
At the time the data were downloaded, 582 observations had reached iNaturalist’s “research grade” designation, while 707 still needed further identification. Güell described the review as a continuing peer process involving professional scientists, Minnesota Master Naturalists, and knowledgeable outdoor enthusiasts.
“All of these observations, it’s a living system, it’s a living project,” he said. “The point of iNaturalist and the point of these BioBlitzes is for researchers to actually use them at some point.”
The observations also became part of an ongoing iNaturalist project covering Voyageurs National Park. Any observation submitted through the app from within park boundaries is automatically added to that larger collection. With the BioBlitz numbers included, 685 observers have made over 7,700 observations documenting 1,361 species in the park.
Güell said organizers learned from this year’s pilot and intend to make the BioBlitz an annual event. But visitors do not have to wait until next summer to begin looking more closely.
“This is not the end of helping discover and record the biodiversity of Voyageurs National Park,” he said. “This is something that anyone can do at any time.”