Results from our visual survey (results from Bee Bowls to come later):

Diptera:

Mosquito (Culicidae)

Midge (Chironomidae)

Housefly (Muscidae)

Hover fly (Syrphidae)

Hemiptera:

Tree hopper (Cercopidae)

Leaf hopper (Cicadellidae)

Water strider (Gerridae)

Hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae)

Hymenoptera:

Bumblebee (Apidae)

Vespid wasp (Vespidae)

Honeybee (Apidae)

Lepidoptera:

Inch worm (Geometridae)

Checkerspot butterfly (Nymphalidae)

Coleoptera:

Flat bark beetle larva (Cucujidae)

Click beetle (Elateridae)

From Robert Mayer at the Arnold Arboretum, here is a list of our morning birding findings!

Location:     Arnold Arboretum
Observation date:     5/1/11
Notes:     sun/clouds 55
Number of species:     22
H= heard only

Canada Goose     2
Red-tailed Hawk     2
Mourning Dove     5
Red-bellied Woodpecker     2 H
Northern Flicker     2 H
Great Crested Flycatcher     2 H
Warbling Vireo     1 H
Blue Jay     3
Black-capped Chickadee     2
White-breasted Nuthatch     1 H
American Robin     20
Gray Catbird     6
European Starling     3
Yellow Warbler     5
Yellow-rumped Warbler     2 H
warbler sp.     1 Brian and I heard another warbler possibly Northern Parula
Chipping Sparrow     1
Song Sparrow     3
White-throated Sparrow     2
Northern Cardinal     4
Red-winged Blackbird     6
Common Grackle     15
House Sparrow     4

Please join us for the second annual Harvard University Campus BioBlitz!

Contact info: 

Email the Agassiz Zoological Club’s email list: azcmail@googlegroups.com

During the event, call:

Adam Clark (857)-544-6782, Andrew Brownjohn (315)-877-7457, or Sam Perez (617)-852-4635

The Agassiz Zoological Club is named in honor of Prof. Louis Agassiz, the founder of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Over 150 years ago, a group of Harvard undergraduates working under Agassiz completed a survey of the biodiversity of sites across Massachusetts. Last year, the Agassiz Zoological Club was reformed in cooperation with the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Undergraduate Group, and completed a comprehensive survey of the biodiversity living on Harvard’s campus (see site: harvardbioblitz.tumblr.com/)

Times: ROUGHLY midnight Sunday, May 1 to midnight Monday, May 2

Location of coordinating center – MCZ Labs, 4^th floor

What is a BioBlitz? Over 24 hours, the total plant and animal life of the area will be cataloged to the best of our ability and recorded in a public database hosted by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). Over time, the HUCBB will provide an invaluable record of the changes in diversity over time, and the types of species present on campus.

When will this happen? The BioBlitz will begin at midnight on Sunday, May 1st and continue through midnight on Monday, May 2nd. Volunteers will lead taxa-specific sampling expeditions across the campus, cataloguing plant, insect, bird, etc. life. Samples will be identified in the field or sorted under microscopes. 

How do I participate? Show up at any point over the 24 hours, either at our sampling location (see below) or at the coordinating center at the MCZ Labs. Student experts will lead guided nature walks for each trip, provide collecting equipment, and help with specimen identification. See which trips you are interested in – we’ll be leading them all day!

Locations: North Area – Harvard Yard, MCZ Labs area, Radcliffe Quadrangle

Southern Area – River Houses, Charles River

How can I get involved?: 

Email the AZC above, and cc Adam, atclark@fas.harvard.edu. We are looking for volunteers who would like to attend guided walks, taxonomists and naturalist who would like to guide walks, and photographers or writers who would like to record events.

Sampling Trips (as of April 21):

All images from 2010 BioBlitz. All corny trip names are solely Adam’s fault.

1)    9AM-12PM: “The birds and the bees” - insect and avifauna of the the Arnold Arboretum.

a.    A guided tour of the forests, fields, and rills of the Arnold Arboretum. We will be looking at local insects and birds, and will collect data for part of a New England-wide inventory of pollinators.

b.    At 10:30AM, we’re meeting up with Robert Mayer, a naturalist at the AA, to go on a guided birding trip of the facilities.

c.    MEET AT Harvard Yard subway entrance (by “the Pit”) at 8:30AM

2)    2PM-4PM: “A walk in the woods” - guided walk featuring the plants of Harvard Yard

a.    Taking advantage of Harvard Yard’s tree map, we will visit and identify plants from around the campus.

b.    MEET AT John Harvard state at 2PM

3)    4PM-6PM: “Sleeping with the fishes” - fish and aquatic arthropods of the Charles River, by the Harvard Woman’s boathouse

a.    Using water nets and seines, we will collect fish, insects, larvae, and other aquatic animals to record the diversity of the Charles River. Waders or sandals are highly encouraged.

b.    MEET AT Women’s Boat House at 4PM

4)    12AM-2AM: “Three sheets to the wind” - light trapping for nocturnal insects

a.    We will set up light traps in the MCZ courtyard to see the local insect wildlife.

b.    MEET OUTSIDE the Harvard Geological Building (by 26 Oxford St.) at 12AM.

Arthropod pitfall samples have finally been sorted! Three pitfall traps were placed at each of seven sites, and left open for about 24 hours. Where possible, insects were later sorted to family, arthropods to order. Results from hand collecting and light trapping at night will be available later this fall.

Data tables are available through Google Docs here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=t5hp1O1AMwcVtK_GxkYbB3g&output=html.

Pictures of each specimen can be found hosted by Google Picassa at http://picasaweb.google.com/adam.tclark/AZCBioBlitz2010?feat=directlink. Images are named by (site code)_(taxonomy)_(number of individuals)_(morphospecies code). Below is a summary of findings.

Please keep in mind that “individuals” data is sketchy at best. When many (>10) individuals were present, they were not counted.

Name Site Species (ID) Individuals Boathouse B 22 31 Lowell House LH 12 30 Lowell Hall LL 18 30 MCZ Courtyard MCZ 11 28 North Yard NY 26 46 South Yard SY 20 28 Stadium S 16 18.

The Boston Globe reports on a family of red-tailed hawks that is nesting right by the Fresh Pond Parkway in West Cambridge.

Watch the video! It really shows how people have a great innate enthusiasm for nature when it’s pointed out to them. I’ve noticed that the ‘aha!’ moment tends to be when they can make a connection between what they’re seeing with their own eyes with something they’ve read in a magazine or see on TV. For biology educators the challenge is to trigger the thought: “I never thought I’d see this with my own eyes!”

(Via MB Saffo.)

We are about half done ID-ing the pitfall and light trap samples. We have photos of them all, and will post them soon!

Rob Gogan emailed us recently with the following notes.

This morning (5-3-10) on my way to campus, I saw these birds:

• Magnolia warbler high among young leaves and catkins of white oak tree across the street from Shannon Hall
• Goldfinch flying over Charles near Weld Boat House
• Warblers high in elms in Harvard Yard

In the blog for 5-2, I suggest you add to the caption of the gorgeous ink-cap mushroom photo that the host tree is an American Elm.

Also, please add to the Radcliffe Yard part of the blog that we stopped at the Radcliffe crabapple tree.  This tree nearly died when Harvard discussed fully merging with Radcliffe in the mid-90’s.  Then, Harvard announced that the Radcliffe name would live on as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was announced.  A new crabapple was planted next to the old one at this time.  Suddenly, the old tree burst into new life, and has thrived ever since. 

As we pondered it, Chris noticed a palm warbler flitting among its leaves.  Rob saw it poke its beak into a tube-rolled leaf and extract a fat green larva, which it ate in three or four bites.
 
Also, I suggest that you add that Sam spotted some lichen with fruiting bodies growing on the north side of the giant pre-Columbian, Central American stone sphere behind Tozzer Library.

Also on the giant sphere (from Costa Rica) was a fat insect larva of some kind, a few spiders, and lots of tiny red mites…

Thanks Rob!

Gen Lewis-Gentry at the Farlow Herbarium took a look at our Stropharia photo and suggested that it might be Stropharia rugoso-annulata. It’s one of the common mushrooms seen around the area, and was first described by William Farlow himself (picture of Farlow below, from HUH website). 

Farlow was Professor of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard from 1879 until the turn of the century, and helped to establish botany (then including mycology) as a scientific discipline in the country. His description of Stropharia rugoso-annulata was published posthumously in the Icones Farlowianae, which has sumptuous color lithograph plates illustrating each of the species described - each printing is slightly different because the stones were all inked by hand. The type was described from Massachusetts, and was ‘rare’ at the time, but it’s now very common growing on mulched beds, which was where we found it (in a flowerbed in the Div School).

The character to look out for, apparently, is the annulus around the stipe, which has a star-shaped appearance when seen head-on. The cap is chestnut-brown with a purplish hue, and the spores are ‘snuff-brown’. Back in the day when most people would know the color of snuff very well….

The small fish we pulled out of the Charles has been identified by Prof. Farrell as a juvenile Largemouth Bass.