Ireland’s BioBlitz
20 – 21 May, 2011

Ireland’s BioBlitz 2011 is over and Killarney National Park won this year’s competition with a massive 1088 species tally over the 24hr period. This is double the number of species recorded by last year’s winner, Connemara National Park. All of this year’s sites exceeded last year’s winning tally, so the standard of recording in all five sites was remarkably high.

THE RESULTS

Overall winners: The site with the most species recorded

Killarney National Park are the overall winners with a final tally of 1088. This is a remarkable figure even for such as diverse site and averages out at 1.3 species recorded for every minute of the competition. The real surprise is the huge tally recorded at Liffey Valley Pary, Waterstown as it is by far the smallest park and has limited habitat diversity.

SITE	No of Species
1st – Killarney National Park	1088
2nd – The Raven/Wexford Wildfowl Reserve	826
3rd – Ballycroy National Park	702
4th – Dromore Nature Reserve	688
5th – Liffey Valley Park, Waterstown	687

Site with the most species recorded per area

The site with the most species recorded per area is Liffey Valley, Waterstown. At 65 ha it was by far the smallest of the five sites, and the final species tally averaged out at10.60 species per ha was far greater than any of the other sites.

SITE	No of species per ha
1st – Liffey Valley Park, Waterstown	10.60
2nd – Dromore Nature Reserve	1.72
3rd – The Raven/Wexford Wildfowl Reserve	1.05
4th – Killarney National Park	0.11
5th – Ballycroy National Park	0.06

The site with the most species recorded by recorder

Killarney National Park also won this category as on average 24.2 species were recorded based on the number of registered recorders participating at the site. What a productive bunch they were in Killarney! Ballycroy National Park was a close second, showing that despite the poor habitat diversity, those recording in the field were very productive. Dromore’s tally reflected the fact that it was very successful at getting a good team of people to help with the organisation at the site.

SITE	No of species per recorder
1st – Killarney National Park	24.2
2nd – Ballycroy National Park	21.3
3rd – The Raven/Wexford Wildfowl Reserve	17.2
4th – Liffey Valley Park, Waterstown	14.3
5th – Dromore Nature Reserve	9.97

Background to BioBlitz 2011

Ireland’s BioBlitz took place from 17.00hrs on Friday, 20 May to 17.00hrs on Saturday, 21 May 2011. Each site assembled an impressive team of highly skilled recorders, all of whom gave of their time and expertise freely to help make this a huge voluntary effort to promote the conservation of biological diversity. Composition of each teams is presented on the site’s page above.

Follow the event as it unfolded on this website. Click on the ‘latest news’ feed on the right-hand panel to get the latest news as it happened. The Data Centre’s Twitter account was also be dedicated to BioBlitz 2011 from the Thursday prior to the event.

About BioBlitz ..

BioBlitz is a scientific race against time. The aim of this fun event is to find as many species as possible within a park over a 24 hour period. During last year’s event, the champions, Connemara National Park recorded a massive 542 species over a 24 hour period.

Killarney BioBlitz 2011 Champions

BioBlitz 2010 Champions - Connemara National Park

Again this year, five of Ireland’s magnificent state-owned properties will be vying for the title of BioBlitz 2011 Champions, with each site pitted against one another to see which property can find most species. From soaring eagles to the smallest bugs in the undergrowth, teams of scientists and volunteers will comb the parks recording what they find.

Who will take home the much coveted BioBlitz trophy this year? Participating will be ..

Ballycroy National Park, Co Mayo	Dromore Woods, Co Clare
Killarney National Park, Co Kerry	Liffey Valley Park, Waterstown, Dublin 20
Raven Wood Nature Reserve, Co Wexford

This is a unique event where scientists, students and the general public can come together and learn how scientists and recorders use their skills to study the wildlife of an area. It will also introduce the non-specialist to the fabulous wealth of biodiversity that occurs all around us.

The event will commence at 17.00 hrs on 20 May and finish at 17.00 hrs on 21 May.

If you are interested in finding out more about Ireland’s natural heritage or would like to join one of the participating teams, please contact the National Biodiversity Data Centre for further details.

Email: info@biodiversityireland.ie

Phone: 051 306 240

The Centre and it’s partners would like to express its appreciation to the following groups for their support with the organisation and promotion of Ireland’s BioBlitz 2011.

Wexford Naturalist Field Club	Wexford Co. Co. Environment