Graduate Student Mini-Grants for the 2011 Bioblitz

Iwaki, Anna; Swann, Don

On October 21-22, 2011, the National Park Service, the National Geographic Society, and a number of other partners hosted the 2011 BioBlitz, the largest event in the history of Saguaro National Park. The BioBlitz included more than 2,000 school children, approximately 1,500 members of the public and over 600 ambassador volunteers, including approximately 150 scientists, who together celebrated the biological diversity of Saguaro National Park while collecting data from the park’s desert, desert grassland, riparian, woodland and forest areas. As part of this event, funds provided the Western National Parks Association were used to award competitive “mini-grants” to University of Arizona students who were asked to combine their biological expertise with innovative citizen science programs. Four students or student groups organized the following projects: 1) an in-depth study of endophytes (fungi that live inside vascular plants) conducted by Tucson Magnet High School students; 2) a huge bird survey effort throughout the entire park involving more than 65 volunteer amateur ornithologists; 3) the organization of historic data on more than 13,000 saguaros for a re-survey of a 1941 saguaro plot by high school students; and 4) a beetle inventory by a student who demonstrated live insects at the Biodiversity Festival and played a starring role in the nationally broadcast Electronic Field Trip. This very successful program added great value to the BioBlitz and demonstrated the unique scientific support that WNPA offers western US national parks.

Graduate Student Mini-Grants for the 2011 Bioblitz

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