This year’s BioBlitz species study in Biscayne National Park near Miami, Florida begins today. The 24-hour event teams together volunteer scientists, families, students, teachers, and other community members to find and identify as many species of plants, animals, microbes, fungi, and other organisms as possible.

A BioBlitz gives kids and adults the opportunity to join biologists in the field and participate in a real-life research expedition. It’s a fun and exciting way to learn about the biological diversity of local parks and to better understand how to protect them.

National Geographic is helping conduct a BioBlitz in a different national park each year during the decade leading up to the U.S. National Park Service Centennial in 2016. Volunteers at the 2009 Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore BioBlitz turned up more than 1,200 species compared with more than 1,700 in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 2008, and more than 650 in Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park in 2007.

Would you consider participating in a BioBlitz?

Learn more about a BioBlitz.
Get BioBlitz updates on National Geographic’s Blog WILD.

Photograph by Susan Poulton