Global Freshwater BioBlitz – Crowdsourcing for Conservation

The Global Freshwater BioBlitz began in February 2014 as an effort to engage nature lovers in freshwater fish conservation. The objective was to increase the amount of data being collected on freshwater fishes. Alarmingly,... [ view full abstract ]

The Global Freshwater BioBlitz began in February 2014 as an effort to engage nature lovers in freshwater fish conservation. The objective was to increase the amount of data being collected on freshwater fishes. Alarmingly, freshwater fishes may now be the most threatened group of vertebrates, based on more than 7,000 species currently assessed for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The more data collected on freshwater fish species and their habitats, the better. Nature lovers could both contribute to a good cause (wildlife conservation) and help in an international scientific effort simply by taking and uploading photos. Conservation is not just for scientists. Everyday people can make significant contributions. Participants aid in the data collection process by photographing and uploading information on freshwater fishes and their habitats into the project database. These data help map species distributions, fill in gaps where fieldwork has not been conducted, identify invasive species threats, supplement other sources for assessments, and may even identify new species. “Research-grade” data (those observations verified by the ichthyologists serving as project “curators”) have already been fed into the IUCN Red List and data archives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and Encyclopedia of Life.