740 species found in Arima Valley Bioblitz

This year’s event was based at the Asa Wright Nature Centre (AWNC) which is nestled deep in the forest on the southern slopes of Trinidad’s Northern Range mountains. It was organised by Mike G Rutherford, curator of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Zoology Museum with help from the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club (TTFNC), the AWNC and staff and students from UWI.

Almost 100 experts and volunteers gathered together on the Saturday morning at the AWNC Mango Room, which was to be the base of operations for the event. After a short briefing the different groups split up and headed out to record and collect anything and everything that crawled, flew, slithered, hopped, grew and lived in the Arima Valley.

The birds were surveyed by members of the (TTFNC) Birding Group along with other volunteers. They headed up to Morne Bleu at the top of the Arima Valley, out into the trails around AWNC and down to Verdant Vale. Many also took the opportunity to survey the birds from the world famous Asa Wright veranda as the multitude of hummingbird feeders and bird tables meant that the birds came to them.

They recorded 87 species in total including tanagers, trogons and thrushes, woodcreepers, warblers and wrens, pigeons and parrots and hawks and hermits. Considering that there have been 159 bird species seen at AWNC over the last few decades finding over half of them in just 24 hours was an impressive effort.

Mammals were found in two main ways. The first was by direct trapping of bats using nets; this was led by Dr Luke Rostant who was helped by a team of students and foreign visitors. They captured and released 11 species of bat through the night including fruit eaters, nectar feeders, insect eaters and carnivores. The second method was to use motion activated camera traps to see what large mammals there were using the trails, this resulted in photos of two deer and several agouti. People also saw armadillo, Manicou, squirrels and mice during their walks resulting in a total of 17 species of mammals overall.

The reptile and amphibian group was led by John C Murphy, who came all the way from the Field Museum in Chicago to take part. The group included experts from the Wildlife Division, keen amateur enthusiasts and students and members of the Serpentarium. They had a productive time finding 12 different species of snake, ranging from the tiny worm snake to the big tree boa and from the venomous mapepire balsain to harmless false mapepire. The lizards were plentiful with many different geckos crawling all over the trees and buildings around the AWNC and large tegus feeding under the bird tables.

The nine species of frog that were seen, including the beautiful bright green leaf-nesting frog, were often quite easy to track down due to their loud calling through the night.

The huge range of invertebrates was sampled by several small groups. Professor Christopher Starr from UWI looked for social insects including wasps, bees, ants and termites and managed not to get himself stung; Dr Jo-Anne Sewlal sampled for spiders and harvest men, Rakseh Bhukal headed a team looking for scorpions and at night time using UV lights. Kris Sookdeo from the TTFNC along with Imran Khan and Mark Greener recorded a wide range or butterflies and moths using a variety of bait traps, light traps and hand nets; and finally Mike Rutherford looked for snails. Many of the members of other groups collected a wide variety of beetles, bugs, crickets and other insects during their surveying and brought them back for identification. In total over 240 species of invertebrates were found.

One group that was surveyed in an organised fashion for the first time this year was the fungi. A team of keen amateurs led by Jeffrey Wong Sang headed out to photograph as many different species as they could find. These ranged from delicate little individual mushrooms hiding under fallen logs to large bracket fungus growing on the sides of trees. Being damp and dark in places the rainforest is a great place for a wide variety of fungus and the team ended up with a rough count of over 30 species.

A freshwater team led by Dr Amy Deacon hit the rivers, ponds and streams throughout the valley. They used large seine nets, small hand nets and even some fish traps to survey for fish, invertebrates and diatoms (tiny single-celled plant like organisms). They found six species of fish, seven types of diatom and many different dragonflies, damselflies and other insects.

Plants were surveyed by two main teams, one from the University of the West Indies, headed by Dr Mike Oatham and Doreen Jodhan, and one from TTFNC Botany Group headed by Lester Doodnath. Unlike the animal groups where species are often hard to find, the plant group have the problem of having too many species all around them and trying to sort them out required a careful plan. Teams identified what they could in the field and then brought large bags of samples back for sorting, local plant expert Winston Johnson then helped to identify over 100 species from their leaves, flowers or seeds. In the end the plant group had a rough total of 317 species.

Members of all teams worked late into the night either carrying on surveying or staying at the basecamp to identify what they had found. On Sunday morning participants were up before dawn and heading out again. From 7 am the first members of the public started to arrive to take part in guided walks along the AWNC trails. These walks were led by the AWNC guides and education and conservation officers. Over 80 people participated and they were shown some of the collecting methods that had been used as well as getting a chance to talk to some of the experts. They then came up to the basecamp where there were many animals on temporary display in tanks. They got a close up look at a variety of snakes, lizards, insects, fish and spiders that had been found during the last 24 hours. There was also a display by Mark Charran from Fisheries Division showing some of the invasive species found in the streams and rivers of Trinidad whilst members of the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) Youth Ambassadors gave out free gifts to the visitors.

The total number of species was announced not long after noon; Mike Rutherford gave the breakdown of the different animal species found whilst Dr Aidan Farrell from UWI told everyone about the plants. The tally in the end was 139 vertebrates, 247 invertebrates, 30 fungi, 7 diatoms and 317 plants making a total of 740 species found in Arima Valley during the BioBlitz. This number may change as there were many insect and plant specimens collected during the event but not positively identified and as photographs come in from the participants unrecorded species may be discovered.

The BioBlitz was once again generously sponsored by First Citizens who gave money to the TTFNC to run the event. Mode Alive supplied some items for the volunteers including bags and refillable water bottles. Thanks also go to the University of the West Indies Department of Life Sciences for the use of collecting equipment and vehicles and to AWNC for allowing the event to be held at the centre and to their staff who helped to make sure the whole event ran very smoothly.

Many people were already asking about where the next BioBlitz will take place but no decision has been made yet, however possibilities include Toco, Nariva or somewhere in Tobago.

For more information about the Bioblitz see the Facebook page Arima Valley Bioblitz 2013 or visit the UWI page at http://sta.uwi.edu/fst/lifesciences/BioBlitzHome.asp

Mike G Rutherford is the Curator of the UWI Zoology Museum, Department of Life Sciences, The University of The West Indies.