On October 1, Richmond National Battlefield Parks hosted its
first ever bioblitz, a nationwide event in which volunteers become citizen
scientists and help catalogue as much of their local biodiversity as they can.
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Reynold’s adjunct biology faculty member Travis Anthony
(center)
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Volunteers
also include numerous professors and students from University of Richmond and
Virginia Commonwealth University. Professors incorporated this experience into
their curricula to give students a better appreciation of how much there is
living in one’s local environment and give students a taste of conducting real
scientific research. Richard Groover from Reynolds also led a team for this
research.
Using the smartphone app
iNaturalist, with which anyone can document and make accessible local wildlife
observations, volunteers were able to document 226 unique species living at our
Totopotomoy Creek site, on October 1st.
Assistant dean and biology
professor Richard Groover has been surveying for the last 6 months all possible
insect species found at Totopotomoy Creek Battlefield. At the National Park Service’s
request, he will continue to survey insect species at three more battlefield
over the coming years.
