Citizen scientists 'blitz' Stillwater River

It would have been hard to plan better weather for a group of citizen scientists at Flathead Valley Community College’s inaugural BioBlitz.

The BioBlitz, which ran from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, used community members to take a biological snapshot of the Stillwater River as it runs behind the college campus.

Ruth Wrightsman, biology professor and adviser to the college’s biology program, said the test program went swimmingly.

“It’s been a lot of fun to bring a lot of different people together,” she said. “We have biologists, Forest Service people and a lot of Glacier High School students.”

Close to 100 people volunteered time on the sunny Saturday to count up the birds, plants, insects and other living organisms on the college campus. People with absolutely no science background could make an impact at events such as the BioBlitz.

“We can actually add the data we collected to a database,” Wrightsman said. “This is citizen science, like the Audubon Society Christmas bird count.”

The preliminary tally from the BioBlitz showed 45 to 50 bird species, 25 aquatic insect species, 60-plus types of plants and some assorted fungi and lichens, Wrightsman said Monday.

The BioBlitz, started by National Geographic, is typically a 24-hour event taking place in national and city parks. Events have been held in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Wrightsman said she might consider doing a 24-hour event next year, if the success of the first event is any indication.

By using volunteer hours to survey the flora and fauna of an area, the BioBlitz takes a reasonably accurate snapshot of what lives there.

For the Flathead Valley Community College campus, a surprising amount of life is present in the trees, ponds and grassy areas on the east side near the Stillwater River.

One bird watcher said he had seen 47 different species, including migratory song birds such as the yellow warbler, American robin and mountain bluebird. Hawks, eagles, crows, magpies and other avian specimens are all present on campus as well.

“It’s more diverse than we expected,” Wrightsman said. “We are surprised. The point is to take a picture of the life here and we have a good one.”

Volunteers took hourlong tours around the 216-acre campus, performing different taxonomical tasks. The bird watchers had binoculars focused on the trees, the plant tour took a van to the campus farm and other groups went to ponds on campus or the river to look for aquatic invertebrates.

Jessica Hopkins, an adjunct professor, led several volunteers and Glacier High School students in collecting bugs from the Stillwater River.

“We had a stonefly eat a midge in our pan here,” she said. “We have a mini-ecosystem in our dish.”

To get the invertebrates, the volunteers quite literally flip rocks in the stream and do a little science dance — affectionately known as the “Benthic shuffle” named after the sediment and sub-sediment layers of the water ecosystem it disturbs — to change the flow of water and dredge up the critters in the muck.

A D-net — a net with a flat bottom and shaped like a capital letter D — is then used to scoop up the creatures and they are placed in a pan to observe them. Caddis flies, stoneflies, mayflies, midges, and even a freshwater crustacean known as a scud or side swimmer could be grabbed in one well-placed scoop.

The species in the river differ massively from those in a static body of water.

“There are totally different invertebrates in the pond,” Hopkins said. “Those ones are designed for swimming rather than clinging to rocks.”

Dragonfly larvae, mosquitos and other invertebrates, as well as aquatic plants such as duckweed and pondweed, are more acclimated to nonflowing water such as the pond.

Glacier High School freshman Matt Lessmeier, who came to the event with a friend, was surprised by the fun he had.

“My friend is doing it for extra credit and I thought I’d come along,” he said. “It’s been really good. I’ve seen lots of cool birds.”

Fish in the river were not collected for the biological snapshot. But Wrightsman remembered an occasion when John Fraley of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks came to the college.

“He sent an electrical shock into the water and all the stunned fish floated to the top,” she said. “It was kind of a rude shock for the fish, but they woke up in a few seconds and swam away. There were pike and cutthroat trout at least.”

A group of students had set up a DNA bar-coding station to identify each specimen accurately and take a tally. Another set had a polarization station, adding physics to the day of science.

This first BioBlitz was partially funded by a $2,200 grant from the Flathead Valley Community College Foundation. A BioBlitz next year might be located in Glacier National Park.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.