Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2025 bioblitz! We couldn’t have done it without you!
2025 Bioblitz by the Numbers
Number of in-person participants: ~150
Number of identifiers on iNaturalist: ~330
Number of iNaturalist observations posted*: 4,445
Number of species observed: 985
Number of species that were documented in the Preserve for the first time: 253!
Number of species unknown to science: 2!**
*Handwritten notes and eBird checklists were added to iNaturalist using the Lakeshore Nature Preserve iNat account and are therefore included in this number too
**That we know of! There may be more, waiting to be found!
This is a pie chart based on the number of observations from each species group. Almost half of all observations were plants, with insects making up the next-largest proportion. Fungi, birds, and arachnids all had similar numbers of observations, with all other groups having very few. We did manage to find three species of bacteria (identified by the disease they caused), as well as most major groups of life!
Bioblitz Results Summary
By C. Warneke, PhD, UW-Madison Damschen Lab
We had a wonderful inaugural bioblitz at Lakeshore Nature Preserve! Despite the hot conditions and mediocre air quality, we had a turnout of around 150 people over the course of the event! Among these many participants, we had a total of >4,400 individual observations of species in the Preserve. For an urban natural area that averages around 15 iNaturalist observations on an average day during the summer, having >4,400 observations in 15 hours was an astonishing amount of effort!
Among these many observations, we found so many amazing species! One of the purposes of the bioblitz was to help the Preserve understand what species are found here so that we can better manage the habitat to support rare and declining species. We found 10 species that are considered globally threatened as well as an additional 18 that are considered threatened in Wisconsin. These are of special concern for management, and we will continue working to safeguard these species in the Preserve. These threatened species included many of our bats (which are suffering the effects of White Nose Syndrome), native tree species declining due to introduced insects/pathogens, and species that are habitat specialists in prairies or high-quality woodlands.
We were thrilled to see so many people getting excited about our local biodiversity. So often, our local natural areas are thought of as simply “parks,” without the context of providing valuable habitat and, in the case of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, serving as a research, teaching, and outreach facility for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. One highlight was when the volunteer researchers who run the Biocore Prairie Bird Banding Observatory caught a Yellow Warbler with interesting plumage characteristics that are not often seen in that species (see above). Understanding our local birds is a key component of the research at the Observatory and this unusual individual was all the more exciting because it was found during the bioblitz! Another highlight was finding two species that are unknown to science! (see photos to the right) These species are under study by scientists that specialize in these species groups, and they will hopefully be named soon. A last highlight was seeing all of the walks and activities that we had during the day and seeing people learn about all sorts of organisms, ranging from plants to parasitic wasps to birds. In Madison, we are thankful to have so many skilled experts and local natural history groups that engage the public in biology!
The Eagle Heights Community Gardens is among the oldest community gardens in the country and are a unique cultural and ecological feature within the Preserve. The gardens not only have a distinct form of local biodiversity in the cultivated plants but provide habitat for wild species that are only found in those settings, within the Preserve, including such previous sightings as White-winged Dove and Harris’s Sparrow. Several gardeners in the community gardens submitted lists of the plants that they grow, helping us to understand the diversity of cultivated species in the Preserve and adding 25 species to the bioblitz count.
As an urban natural area with a previous history of agriculture, the Preserve faces a management challenge of removing invasive species such as garlic mustard and common buckthorn, which harm the ecological integrity of the habitat in the Preserve. During the bioblitz, we collectively documented 421 species of plants (with species-level IDs), of which 271 were native and 150 were non-native (64% native). Not all non-native species are invasive, but this can still be a useful metric to see how well management action is fostering healthy habitats at the Preserve.
