Big Bioblitz Set April 29 at UC Davis: Plants, Animals and More

Mark your calendar!

A BioBlitz is set from 9 to 11 a.m., Saturday, April 29 in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. It's being hosted by UC Davis doctoral student Grace Horne of the Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Participants will meet in at the Wyatt Deck (previously the BioBlitz was scheduled for the Carolee Shields White Flower Garden and Gazebo.)

"I am excited about the location change because we will be located next to two biodiversity hubs: The T. Elliot Weier Redwood Grove and the Mary Wattis Brown Garden of California Native Plants," said Horne,  a member of the laboratory of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Reservations (free) are underway here.   

“We need your help to track and identify the wildlife in Davis!" said Horne, a member of the laboratory of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "Participants will take photos of plants, animals, and fungi, and upload these observations to the community science platform, iNaturalist. All you need to bring is a smartphone or a photo-taking device. We will have a table with small lenses, bug boxes, field guides, insect specimens, and more to help you make observations of wildlife. Local experts will also be available to assist in identifying the wildlife."

This event will be hosted in coordination with the City Nature Challenge Sacramento. The City Nature Challenge (CNC) is an annual international competition among cities with the goal of documenting the most biodiversity within a four-day period.

This year the challenge will occur from April 28 to May 1, "so any observations of wildlife that are uploaded to iNaturalist will contribute to the 2023 CNC," Horne said. "At the end of the CNC, the region with the most observations wins. We are looking to make as many quality observations as we can during the Davis Bioblitz, so stop by the Shields Gazebo to help contribute observations to the Greater Sacramento Region!”

Horne joined the Meineke lab in 2021 after graduating from Colby College, Waterville, Maine, where she double-majored in majored in biology (evolution and ecology), and environmental science (conservation biology). She served as education staff member and undergraduate researcher at The Caterpillar Lab, Marlborough, N.H. from 2018-2021. The environmental education organization focuses on inviting people—youth and adults alike—to share in stories of ecology, evolution, and natural history. She gained experience in conservation and education in the spring of 2020 when she participated in the Round River Conservation Studies in Maun, Botswana. 

Horne's undergraduate thesis about the effects of the decline of ash trees on native caterpillars, scored the cover of the February edition of the journal Environmental Entomology.  The paper, “Specialist Herbivore Performance on Introduced Plants During Native Host Decline,”  is co-authored by Ria Manderino of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation,  Upperville, VA and Samuel Jaffe of The Caterpillar Lab, Marlborough, N.H.  “Our publication highlights the importance of multispecies assessments of host plant acceptance,” said Horne, who studies plant-insect interactions, urban ecology, global change biology, natural history and community science in the Meineke lab.