Brandeis University Biodiversity's Boletim

From April 26th through April 29th, people in cities all over the world will be out iNatting as many wildlife observations as they can.

The City Nature Challenge is a 4-day bioblitz that cities and individuals all over the world participate in. It started in 2016 as a competition between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Now, cities around the globe compete in the CNC in late April each year.

The goal is to get outside and make as many observations of wildlife in urban areas as possible. Many cities (including Boston!) use iNaturalist as the platform for participants to upload these observations.

You can participate in the CNC from wherever you are. If you are in a city that is participating on iNaturalist, you can join that project and help your city compete in the CNC. If you aren’t in a city participating in the CNC, you can still contribute to the global project.

The goal of the CNC is to collect as much data as possible to understand how we coexist with nature. The observations you make will help contribute to this research (and your grade if participating in the CNC is an assignment).

Happy iNatting!

Tucked behind Brandies' International Business School lies the Sachar Woods, a forested area where, during the day, students and local Waltham residents can take a hike, walk their dog (on leash please!), or simply enjoy nature. During the night however, our other neighbors come out to play. As seen in images captured by the Brandeis Camera Traps project, numerous coyotes, white-tailed deer, raccoons, and oh-so-many squirrels make their regular appearances around Sachar woods, with the occasional sightings of opossums, red fox, cottontail, and various bird species.

Through using motion triggered infrared camera traps, occurrence and behavior data of nocturnal and crepuscular species can be gathered where there are not always humans around to observe. Keep an eye on the Camera Trap project for new observations coming soon!

If you’ve walked near any dumpsters or the abandoned Usen Castle at night, chances are you’ve seen or heard rats scurrying around. You may have even had to deal with a mouse infestation in your dorm room. Rats and house mice are invasive species, and also pose a health risk to humans. Unfortunately, high density living areas, such as college dorms, often attract these pests.

Brandeis uses an integrative pest management program, focusing on natural controls of pests and invasive species first, with pesticides, herbicides, and rodenticides as a last resort. However, for rodent control inside buildings, they use Bromadiolone and Brodifacoum, which are both anticoagulant agents. These work by thinning the rodent’s blood and getting rid of their ability to clot, causing them to bleed to death. Rodents who consume these poisons don’t die right away, so they are often consumed by wildlife or pets, who are then susceptible to secondary poisoning.

Alternatives to rodenticides include: snap traps, automatic traps, relying on predators, and preventing infestations by properly storing food and sealing up holes inside buildings.

Have you ever seen a dead bird while walking through campus? Unfortunately, this is a common experience. As the decal on Shiffman (created by Forrest Shimazu, Brandeis ‘24) says, “North American bird populations have declined by nearly one-third in the last 50 years...Don't let the rest fade away…”. One major contributing factor to this decline is the prevalence of window strikes.

Most bird species simply can’t see glass the way humans do, and don’t understand that they can’t fly through it. Shiny, reflective windows, and windows that allow birds to see through a building to the other side, pose the greatest threat. Birds don’t see the glass, they see a pathway to fly towards more greenery, then strike the window. Most of the time, the collision is fatal. Mandel Humanities quad, the Shapiro Science Center, Skyline, and the Library are some stellar examples of architecture at Brandeis that are perfect for bird strikes, with their large, reflective windows.

Luckily, there are a few ways to mitigate bird strikes on existing windows. Closing blinds, installing external screens, and adding patterned decals can all help make windows visible to birds. During the Brandeis Year of Climate Action in 2022-23, there was a contest held for a decal design to prevent bird strikes. Forrest won the contest, and his decal was put on one of the windows on Shiffman hall in the Mandel quad. So far, Brandeis hasn’t taken any additional action to prevent bird strikes, but students in Skyline have taken it into their own hands, putting sticky notes on windows that pose the greatest risk for birds.

There is an iNaturalist project dedicated to documenting bird strikes at Brandeis, called Brandeis Bird Strike. You can help call attention to this issue by uploading evidence of any bird strike victims you observe. You can also bird-proof your windows by adding sticky notes or curtains, and educate your friends and family about window strike prevention.

iNaturalist has become a prominent aspect of the Brandies Community, bringing people together not only from within the campus but also from the surrounding area and even throughout the world. As this journal post is currently being written, nearly 1,200 users have contributed to the Brandeis University Biodiversity Project, with almost 50,000 total observations of 2,652 unique species. These observations have been engaged by 3,595 users, many of which are not direct members of Brandeis. But how did iNaturalist become prominent to the Brandies Community? In this journal post we will explore the history of iNaturalist on campus.

2016 was the first year that iNaturalist was being used by the greater Brandeis community with its incorporation into courses on campus. In its first official year in use, a total of 820 observations were made encompassing 209 total species. The American Robin was the most observed species during 2016, and to this day has remained as one of the most frequent observations. The River Birch was the third most observed species during this year, but since then has had a large decline in the number of observations made. Other common observations were the Eastern White Pine, Canada Goose, Eastern Gray Squirrel, and Eastern Cottontail. Similar to the American Robin, these have all remained as the top observed species.

Before exploring further, it is worth highlighting the observations before iNaturalist officially made its way into the community. Several observations can be found of various plants and birds in the surrounding area of Brandeis, particularly from The Island. These observations even go as far back as the early days of iNaturalist’s inception, but have been added in more recent years. The first observation made in real time and posted on campus traces all the way back to December of 2012, in which a Red-tailed Hawk was apparently observed. Unfortunately, there was no actual photo to coincide with the observation, which reflects an experience that many first-time iNaturalist users make even to this day.

2017 was an important year for iNaturalist on Brandeis. Nearly 600 users were now using the app, which was almost three times as many from the first year. Collectively, more than 3,000 observations were made in this year of 360 species. Although impressive, these numbers do not make 2017 an important year. This can be attributed to Gerald, who is an Eastern Muskrat that has amassed to become the most popular observation on the whole iNaturalist platform (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5890862).

Since then, iNaturalist has continued to grow in popularity in the Brandies Community, except for the decline in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some notable years at Brandeis were 2018 and 2022. 2018 resulted in 987 unique species being observed, which was by far the largest jump made from any year. 2022 was the only year that more than 10,000 observations were made, with 10,890 observations. Currently, we are only finishing up the third month of the year and already have more than 3,000 observations made, so maybe the observation record can be broken.

It is very interesting to see how something that started off as an unknown identification of a Red-tailed Hawk can spawn the likes of Gerald and a mass community project that connects us all.

Semester iNaturalist observations are back in full swing after February break and we couldn't be more excited to see what you all have spotted on campus. Students in both Conservation Biology as well as Participatory Science classes have been hard at work recording their findings on the platform. Additionally, we're curious: Leave a comment below with your favorite observation around Brandeis that you have made in the past few months!

On this fateful day, six years ago, a legend was born.

Today we celebrate Gerald, a true hero of iNaturalist and Brandeis alike. From humble beginnings as an everyday muskrat(?) on our very campus, Gerald has tranformed into arguably the most famous observation on this entire website, with over 400 community IDs and 1000 comments. Not to mention over 500 unique and hilarious observation fields.

The story of Gerald dramatically illustrates the problems that can arise from offering IDs to observations that you are not completely confident in, but it has also revealed a more light-hearted and fun side of iNaturalist, and for that, we owe Gerald our thanks.

I've seen ruminations across iNat suggesting ways for the platform to celebrate Gerald day. My favorite so far is that the iNat logo be replaced with a logo resembling Gerald on April 17th. Perhaps someday this dream will come true, and Gerald will earn recognition he deserves.

Bringing our journal posts back to life for 2023 as our semester is underway and this year's Conservation Biology student help to add observations to campus. We are looking forward to exploring campus through their eyes!

Since our last update we've added three camera traps to campus - which have provided lots of interesting observations and our first campus observation of flying squirrels. Check - out some of the highlights here from our camera trap operator - @forrestshimazu like the flying squirrel: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=brandeis-university-biodiversity&taxon_id=46272&user_id=forrestshimazu&verifiable=any or deer in combat: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141428025

Spring semester 2020 is upon us. Looking forward to seeing our iNaturalist collection grow as our community documents biodiversity in and around campus.

A great crowd this morning at our mini-bioblitz. You can check out the results of today's observations on the project page for today: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pollinator-project-mini-blitz