2019 Ontario Botanists' Big Year Summary

Wow. Just wow.

The 2019 Big Year was a huge success. Over 200,000 observations were submitted to the project. That's ten times the number of observations submitted to the first Big Year in 2018. Every single municipality and ecoregion in the province was represented this year and a total of 3,150 species were observed, 2,906 of which were vascular plants (Tracheophyta). Approximately 3,300 species of vascular plants are known to occur in Ontario which means that approximately 88% of the known vascular flora of Ontario was observed this year!

Some noteworthy observations submitted to the Big Year included a new species for Ontario found by Kevin Gevaert (@kevin_gevaert) and major range extensions for other species. Some elusive and charismatic species were submitted, like this observation of Splachnum luteum, a rare and mysterious moss that grows only on moose dung, submitted by Gwyn Govers (@gwynethgovers).

At the beginning of the year, I challenged participants to observe more than 1,000 species of plants in 2019. Not only were people up for the challenge but four of you succeeded in observing over 1,000 species this year. The top observers in 2019 by number of species observed were:

  1. Pat Deacon (@pwdeacon)
  2. Joanne Redwood (@jem9redwood)
  3. Quinten Wiegersma (@birds_bugs_botany)
  4. Reuven Martin (@reuvenm)
  5. Will Van Hemessen (@wdvanhem)
  6. Carl-Adam Wegenschimmel (@carl-adam)
  7. Graham Buck (@g_buck)
  8. Donald Sutherland (@donaldasutherland)
  9. Tristan Knight (@t_knight)
  10. Andrew Minielly (@aminielly)

Some of you might recall that not only did I challenge participants to observe over 1,000 species this year but that I also offered a Special Prize to anyone who did. I was not expecting four of you to do this! But I still want to give each of the "One-Thousand Club" a special gift for their contributions to field botany in Ontario in 2019. The One-Thousand Club in 2019 is Pat Deacon, Joanne Redwood, Quinten Wiegersma and Reuven Martin. Congrats!

For my part, I wasn't able to do nearly as much botanizing this year as I had hoped. But I lived vicariously through the rest of you by spending way too much time identifying observations. The top identifiers this year played an important role in confirming identifications and helping novice botanists identify difficult species. The top identifiers were:

  1. Will Van Hemessen (@wdvanhem)
  2. Brian Popelier (@popb25)
  3. Gwyn Govers (@gwynethgovers)
  4. Oliver Reichl (@arborsphere)
  5. Quinten Wiegersma (@birds_bugs_botany)

It's easy to find hundreds of species when you visit some of the more biodiverse parts of the province. Hotspots like Ojibway Prairie, Point Pelee National Park, the Norfolk Sand Plain and the Bruce Peninsula accounted for a large proportion of observations this year. But some parts of the province were underrepresented. The five municipalities with the fewest species observed in 2019 were: Kenora District, Perth County, Prince Edward County, Rainy River District and Timiskaming District. With this in mind, I'd like to formally invite everyone to participate in the 2020 Ontario Botanists' Big Year. In addition to the One-Thousand Club, I will give a special prize to the top observers in each of those five counties in 2020.

Thanks to everyone who participated in 2019. Happy new year and good botanizing!

  • Will V
Posted on 01 de janeiro de 2020, 07:01 PM by wdvanhem wdvanhem

Comentários

Minor thing, but should the end date for the 2020 one not be Dec 31st, right now it is the 30th.

Publicado por cmcheatle cerca de 4 anos antes

@cmcheatle thanks for noticing! It's fixed now.

Publicado por wdvanhem cerca de 4 anos antes

Thanks for organizing this Will! It was a lot of fun! Onward to 2020...

Publicado por birds_bugs_botany cerca de 4 anos antes

I'm disappointed in how little focus I paid to plants in 2019, although being off my feet for 6 weeks in the height of summer did not help. Hopefully I have many, many more botanical records I can't identify and need help with in 2020 to share.

Publicado por cmcheatle cerca de 4 anos antes

@wdvanhem - separate question, I was thinking of joing the OFB this year, I see you are listed in the page as a director. On the signup for a membership page, it still says sign up for 2019. I assume if I go ahead, it will be properly done for 2020 ?

Publicado por cmcheatle cerca de 4 anos antes

@cmcheatle I believe all new memberships starting today will be for 2020 but I'll have to check with our membership director, Mary Anne Young.

Publicado por wdvanhem cerca de 4 anos antes

@wdvanhem: Great initiative. Labour of love, Will. I respect that.

Publicado por andyfyon cerca de 4 anos antes

This is such a cool project and i want to say that it has changed the way I will use iNaturalist in the future. I got a friend signed up because of this project and he got up to 16th on the list way surpassing me, shoutout @mitchgardiner . Im looking forward to another one for 2020!
@wdvanhem you must have put some serious time into this project and its much appreciated. Thank you, and thank to everyone els who helped.
I would be curios to know (maybe the data is in there) how much the total plant observations in Ontario were affected by this project and if they have gone up because of it. I know personally i observed 10x the plants i would have.

Cheers everyone

Publicado por nottawasaga cerca de 4 anos antes

Shoutout to Tristan Knight for finding Forsstroemia trichomitria! Looking forward to this year. Thanks for putting it together!

Publicado por carl-adam cerca de 4 anos antes

Thank you so much for organizing! :D

Publicado por field_daze cerca de 4 anos antes

Awesome! Here's to an even bigger year in 2020!

Publicado por mitchgardiner cerca de 4 anos antes

Congrats everyone!

I wasn't seriously intending or expecting to hit 1000 species... until I realised that I was approaching 900 species in Mid-September, was planning a trip to Lake Superior in late September, and was going to be working in Windsor during October. That got me close, and after that point I put in some dedicated effort to make it over the 1000 mark.

I don't think it's likely that circumstances will allow me to get as many species this year, but we'll see.

I suspect the species numbers are not quite as impressive as indicated, as that definitely includes some cultivated plants and misidentifications (for example there are currently 6 species of magnolia and 6 species of rhododendron in the project!). But it is still an incredibly impressive result.

Thanks @wdvanhem

Publicado por reuvenm cerca de 4 anos antes

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