UB Answered the City Nature Challenge's Call - and Baltimore Did Well
May 9, 2018
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The final results of the 2018 City Nature Challenge are in, and with the help of the University of Baltimore community, Baltimore is holding its own against some much larger (in population and/or square miles) metropolitan areas in reporting on biodiversity.
In the third year of the competition—which challenges communities across the country to document urban biodiversity through crowd sourcing and the iNaturalist app—Baltimore ranks 24th for observations (5,850), 22nd for species identified (912) and 13th for number of people participating (411).
"We beat cities like the Denver Metro Area, Pittsburgh, Miami, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Boulder, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Southwest Louisiana, Nashville, and Richmond," said Wolf T. Pecher, associate professor in the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences and its Division of Science, Information Arts and Technologies. Prof. Pecher and Stanley J. Kemp, also an associate professor in the Division of Science, Information Arts and Technologies, organized a trip to the Jones Falls near campus as part of the observations. UB partnered with the National Aquarium to help Baltimore make its mark on the map this year.
In the final tally, the San Francisco Bay Area was ranked highest in terms of observatons and biodiversity observed.
Based on Prof. Pecher's calculations, more than 444,000 observations were made over the four days of the challenge, with more than 52,000 species identified and more than 17,000 participants.
"Our own contribution was maybe not the biggest, but certainly not insignificant," Pecher said. "In only two hours, UB's participants made about 90 observations of which 45 were verifiable (i.e., observations I had with pictures, etc.). Of the 45 observations, 34 were identified to the species level. Thus, among all the 411 Baltimoreans, we rank 47th for observations and 24th for identified species. Not bad at all."
Prof. Pecher also noted an interesting, even unique observation made by a UB participant: A fern growing in the cracks of a railroad bridge near campus was identified as a purple-stem cliffbrake (Pellaea atropurpurea). (Photo of the plant above.)
"This plant is native," Pecher said. "This was the first observation of this fern in Baltimore made by any iNaturalist, and the 10th observation in Maryland. Overall, this fern has been observed 232 times in the entire U.S.A. (the earliest observation was in 2010)."
According to the Maryland Biodiversity Project, the recent sighting would be the second one in Baltimore City. The first one was made in 2014. The MDP has 47 records of the plant in their database for Maryland.
"Regardless, it's certainly a rare observation," Prof. Pecher said.
The City Nature Challenge is organized by the California Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Learn more about Baltimore's efforts in this year's City Nature Challenge.
Get the iNaturalist app, free in both the App Store and Google Play.
Learn about UB's B.A. in Environmental Sustainability and Human Ecology.