METU Ecosystem Application and Research Center (EKOSAM) is organizing the 3rd Count Species! activity on METU campus on Friday, June 4, 2021, from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm in cooperation with the Nature Conservation Center.
Photographs of plants, birds, and butterflies will be recorded with experts and shared via social media using #odtudedoga and #tursay2021 hashtags. The event is committed to identifying many species as a part of community science while having a pleasant time in nature. The group that recorded the most species, the participant who photographed the euphydryas orientalis species, as well as the youngest and the oldest participant, will be given awards from the Nature Conservation Center’s publications in the Count Species 2021 activity. Besides, all the participants will receive neck bandanas as a participation gift.
You can find detailed information about the event at http://odtudedoga.org/etkinlikler/tur-say. To participate in this event, please use the interactive form at https://forms.gle/b1gcEyTx9Tbnn2qMA.
About Count Species!
Counting species activity, also known as bioblitz (combination of the words “bio” meaning life and “blitz” meaning raid indicates that people discover the diversity of species in a certain place in a short time by intensively cooperating), has been around in many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, as a community science activity in order to increase public interest in nature. In this activity open to all the participants from all backgrounds, the living creatures observed in nature are identified by the help of experts.
In the Count Species! activity held for the first time in 2018 in METU, 100 participants, accompanied by nature guides recorded 1324 observations. 1054 of them were diagnosed. The five most recorded species were Balkan marbled white (butterfly), Linum hirsutum (plant), Issoria lathonia (butterfly), and Veronica prostrata (plant). In the second activity held in 2019, 56 participants recorded 1428 observations, 260 of them were diagnosed. The five most recorded species were rosa canina (plant), euphydryas aurinia (butterfly), carduus nutans (plant), cerinthe minör (plant), and zygaena purpuralis (butterfly).
