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All Creatures Great and
"Everything counts in large amounts."
STORY BY P.J. PEREA
Central Illinois isn't one of the first places that generally comes to mind when people think of biodiversity. The term seems to be synonymous with old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest or the lush tropical jungles of South America. Illinois' seemingly endless sea of corn and soybean fields belies the hundreds, if not thousands, of species that inhabit the soil, water and sky of the Prairie State. For Michael Jeffords, professional scientist at the Illinois Natural History Survey Public Relations and Education Office, the challenge was to see just how many species could be identified in a 24-hour period at Allerton Park in Monticello. "Allerton Park was chosen because it is located close to the INHS, and it is an island of sorts in a sea of agriculture. It is big enough to be interesting, yet small enough for us to do a count in 24 hours," said Jeffords. The other reasons for the census were to raise public awareness of local biodiversity and allow the public to observe and interact with scientists as they worked in the field. So, this spring, more than 150 professional and amateur scientists from all over Illinois and neighboring states converged at the Red Barn at Allerton Park with the hope of breaking the record of 1,905 unique species counted in 1998 at Walden Pond in Massachusetts. The public was invited to act as observers and, in many cases, collectors in what everyone hoped would be a historic 24-hour count. Commencing at 2 p.m., professional scientists were scheduled to lead teams of amateur collectors and observers in sampling the grounds of Allerton Park. Every animal and plant from the microscopic invertebrates and plants that live in the soil and water to the herds of deer that munch on the fields of corn surrounding the park counted toward the total. At start time, as teams set off for the sampling, Carie Nixon, an outreach assistant at the INHS, made a quick observation of the crowd, recorded Homo sapiens (human) on her data sheet and turned in the first official species of the count. Some teams headed for the far corners of the park, while others started right where they stood, searching the skies and trees. Others dropped to their hands and knees and identified plants, insects and birds on sight.
Herpetologists Michael Dresilk and Christopher Phillips examine a turtle for identifying marks. Kevin Cummings and Chris Mayer, both scientists with the INHS Center for Biodiversity, took their team for a cool dip in the Sangamon River in search of mussels that lived in the mucky bottom. "Historically, there have been 21 species on this site, although the last sampling only turned up 11 live species," Cummings said. After 30 minutes, the team managed to find 11 species, including one that had not been identified in a previous sampling. Not far the Sangamon River, Sandy Vistine and Chad Stewart, graduate students with the INHS Center for Wildlife Ecology, were busy settin up live traps for the many small mammals that scurried through the understory of the floodplain forest. "We're hoping to capture a jumping mouse," said Vistine, "It's one of the rarer mammals of Illinois." Just up the trail from the small mammal group, a family of scientists pulled a child's wagon filled with jars, nets, sampling equipment and data sheets. David Onstad, a scientist with the INHS Center of Economic Entomology, his wife Dawn Dockter, a graduate student studying lepidopteras (moths) at the University of Illinois, and their daughters, Emma and Nora, made the biodiversity blitz a family event. While the parents pointed out the numerous insects that inhabited nearly every part of the forest, the two girls swatted a net down on the unsuspecting creature and, with the help of their parents, deposited the insect into a sampling jar filled with alcohol. A few hundred feet from the family of entomologists, Ed Zaborski, scientist with the Center of Economic Entomology, and his graduate student, Carmen Ugarte, sifted through the leaf litter of the forest floor, taking samples of the soil. The two were searching for diverse micro-habitats that could potentially yield dozens or perhaps hundreds of microscopic invertebrate insects, worms and crustaceans that dwelled in the dirt. "We may even find species that have never been described before," said Zaborski. In the waning hours of the late afternoon sun, Joe Parkos, Hope Dodd and team members from the INHS Center for Aquatic Ecology waded through the creeks emptying into the Sangamon River searching for fish. Their sampling tool of choice was a backpack electroshocker, which generated an electrical current in the water that stunned fish entering the invisible field. "Now kids, don't try this at home!" warned Parkos as he displayed a small net full of stunned minnows. Parkos figured that they would find between 20 and 40 species of fish. As the sun set on the first eight hours of the count, the tally hovered at 400-plus species, with dozens of data sheets, hundreds of pinned insects, plants samples and vials of water samples teeming with zoo-plankton awaiting identification. It was going to be a long night for many scientists.
Out in the darkness of the forest, Joyce Hoffman of the INHS Center for Biodiversity, aka "the bat lady," was busy setting up mist nets to capture bats foraging for a night snack. Anxiously waiting for one of the winged creatures of the night to make its appearance, 10 year-old Adam Trovillione sat on the ground with his eyes craned toward the moonlit sky hoping to at least see a shadow of a bat. Adam, a self-
Scientists surveyed every habitat imaginable at Allerton Park. Molly Tranel searches for insects under a concrete bridge.
described big bat fanatic, saw the announcement about Bio Blitz in the local newspaper and jumped on the opportunity to be included on the bat expedition. He was even decked out in a glow-in-the-dark bat t-shirt for the occasion. After about 45 minutes, Hoffman alerted everyone that there was a bat in one of the nets. Hoffman gingerly untangled the squeaky red-colored bat and showed it to the group. "It's a female and it looks like she is nursing young," noted Hoffman. "I hope to be a mammal ecologist when I grow up. This stuff is very cool!" said an impressed Adam Trovillione.
Back at the Red Barn, the headquarters for the Bio Blitz, scores of scientists identified species and catalogued them into a growing database. Zaborski peered into a microscope specially equipped with a camera to allow people to see him sift through what appeared to be grains of sand. But on the tv screen, they were apparently dozens of insects, crustaceans and worms. Outside the Red Barn, bright flourescent lights beckoned hundreds of insects into sticky traps set out by entomologists. The next morning, many bleary-eyed scientists set out to check traps and examine species lists to see if there were any more animals or plants that might have been overlooked by the previous day's census. The total number of species, as the 2 p.m. deadline drew near, was just over a thousand. A computer glitch was hampering the database's ability to recognize unique species and enter data sheets, so the count was actually far below what was already identified by scientists. Once the deadline was reached, all identifying was halted, but the sheets that were not yet logged in still qualified for the final count. A quick exit poll of scientists revealed that if the record would be broken, it would be close. Dr. John Ebinger, a retired botany professor from Eastern Illinois University, was happy to report that his teams were able to identify close to 500 plant species. A very tired-looking Zaborski was disappointed that he could only find 100 out of a potential 500-plus species that could have been identified. "The soil is a little dry, and fall is a better time because of the leaves adding nutrients to the soil," Zaborski said. Several weeks later, Jeffords revealed that the Bio Blitz count stood at slightly more than 2,000 species.
"The record is definitely broken, but it will take a little more time to sort out the sheets for a final count," reported Jeffords. Now that Allerton Park holds the Bio Blitz title, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and several other states are planning their own biodiversity counts in an attempt to top the new record. This increased interest in local biodiversity will undoubtedly educate the public about local issues of natural resources and scientific processes and inspire more budding young scientists like Adam "bat boy" Trovillione. Entomologists had the daunting task of sorting and identifying thousands of pinned Insects.
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