Volunteers of all ages are invited to join park rangers and scientists in a national BioBlitz
BAKER – Great Basin National Park will be hosting a Lichen BioBlitz – a short-term biodiversity event – July 17-19, 2017. The event kicks off on Monday, July 17 at ten a.m. with talks about lichens and a potluck lunch. That will be followed by afternoon hikes to various locations in the park with different substrates to see what lichens live on them.
Tuesday will offer a variety of hikes, some of them all day long and at high elevation, to find lichens adapted to differing conditions. That evening, the park’s Dark Rangers will hold one of their Night Sky Programs.
On Wednesday morning, short hikes to several other areas will be offered. The BioBlitz will close with a lunch sponsored by the Great Basin National Park Foundation and a talk about the preliminary results by Dr. Brad Kropp of Utah State University. Western National Park Association will sponsor prizes for the event.
“This is an opportunity to learn more about lichens, an interesting organism that we often overlook. Lichens grow in many different areas, and some are thousands of years old,” said BioBlitz organizer Gretchen Baker. “This citizen-science project will help the park refine its list of lichens and develop better understanding of their distribution. Plus it’s a great opportunity to get outside and see the park in new ways.”
To get more information, sign up, or see the detailed schedule, visit https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/nature/great-basin-bioblitz.htm.
