“Species of the Day” Keeps Biologists at Play
Biologists vied daily for taxonomic triumph during the Hakai Institute’s inaugural Quadra Island bioblitz. Here are the winners.
If there doesn’t yet exist a collective noun for nature enthusiasts—the ecologists, naturalists, taxonomists, and other biodiversity scholars of the world—perhaps a curiosity would be fitting. This past spring, the Hakai Institute team gathered together dozens of such experts for a three-week-long survey of the biodiversity of Quadra Island, British Columbia. This was the institute’s first island-wide bioblitz since its Quadra Island Ecological Observatory was established a decade ago, and curiosity was a unifying feature among its participants.
These bioblitzers hailed from institutions and organizations near (such as the Friends of Cortes Island, the Royal BC Museum, the University of Victoria, and Simon Fraser University) and far (including the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, the University of Florida, and Kagoshima University in Japan). Together with Hakai Institute researchers, they cataloged as many species as they could, from the peaks and ponds on land to the depths of the Salish Sea. While some participants were laser focused on one type of organism—marine bristle worms or lichens, for instance—others, the generalists, keenly documented all flora and fauna that crossed their paths.
Bioblitzers collected some specimens by hand, net, or passive trap to be brought back to the lab for further identification; select specimens were then photographed and sampled for DNA sequencing, a process that builds the global DNA library and can reveal cryptic species. (For more on this library and its purpose, check out our video “To BOLDly go“).
In situ photo observations of organisms for the online community science platform iNaturalist were also a big part of the bioblitz process. Regardless of how the participants did their bioblitzing, they shared a love of biodiversity and a drive to understand and record it on this local scale.
Though the bioblitz may be over, the exploration of Quadra Island’s biodiversity continues; Hakai Institute researchers and bioblitz participants continue to sort through samples and process DNA sequencing results to fine-tune species identifications. At the time of writing, the event’s bioblitz’s iNaturalist project has over 12,500 observations of more than 1,500 species, with many hundreds of observations still to be added. (If you have an iNaturalist account and biodiversity knowledge to share, you can help refine these results by adding identifications to observations.)
While that work is ongoing, bioblitzers made many fascinating identifications in the field. At the end of each work day, participants gathered for the time-honored Hakai Institute tradition called “Species of the Day.” In this friendly competition, bioblitzers nominated their favorite find from the day’s efforts—leading to good-natured debate over the coolest taxonomic group, some gentle ribbing, and the occasional revelation.
It’s not always the obviously charismatic creatures that come out on top in these competitions. Below are the winning entries.
This brown elfin butterfly spotted on a meadow death camas flower was submitted by University of Victoria conservation biologist Brian Starzomski. While Starzomski couldn’t be certain, he thought the butterfly was potentially sipping nectar from the flower—which, if the case, is an unusual and exciting observation. As its common name implies, death camas is toxic to most animals thanks to neurotoxic alkaloids in the leaves, roots, and flowers. As a result, very few pollinators are known to be able to feed on it—and the brown elfin might be one of these exceptions.
This winning entry was neither the barnacles nor the small snail nestled between them, but the tiny black spots dotting the barnacle’s surface. Not to be confused with a barnacle lichen, this lichen on a barnacle, Collemopsidium foveolatum, was submitted by Eastern Washington University lichenologist Jessica Allen (first photo). She explained that the small black dots are fruiting bodies rising mushroom-like from the lichen’s body, which is located inside the shell or “forming a thin veneer” over the shell’s surface. This was a lightbulb moment for the Hakai Institute’s nearshore program team, as these black spots had, until then, stumped them during their rocky intertidal surveys. The second photo, by Simon Fraser University biologist John Reynolds, shows more coverage of this lichen on the barnacle.
The last species of the day from the bioblitz’s terrestrially focused week was goblin’s gold, aka luminous moss, a widespread but inconspicuous moss that thrives in dark and damp places with few other plants to contend with for space and food. But wait—don’t plants, including mosses, need light to photosynthesize? Goblin’s gold gets around this not-so-minor detail by using specialized lens-shaped cells to concentrate what little light is available; it does so well enough to grow in even apparently dark places where other photosynthesizers can’t survive.
Brian Starzomski won a second time with this observation. He had been looking for this relatively rare moss species for years and finally found it on the cave-like underside of a large uprooted tree. It’s potentially the first record of the species on Quadra Island (as per the Global Biodiversity Information Facility).
This fingernail-sized pea crab was found living inside a tunicate by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee PhD candidate Lauran Liggan and Hakai Institute research technician Gillian Sadlier-Brown. These true crabs’ tendency to live symbiotically inside clams and other bivalves may be familiar, but some species, like this one, thrive inside other invertebrate hosts.
Polychaete expert Leslie Harris dubbed this marine bristle worm, Octobranchus pacificus, the “cheerleader worm” due to its pom-poms of tentacles. Such endearing nomenclature is typical of Harris, whose ability to sway squeamish folks toward an appreciation of these fascinating marine worms is unmatched. Harris, of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California, submitted this tubeworm for “species of the day” consideration, and shared that this was the first time she’d ever seen a living specimen.
Bering hermit crabs are by no means uncommon, but this specimen still captured the attention of the crowd of community voters present for this particular day’s competition. Submitted by Hakai Institute research scientist Hayden Kuttenkeuler, this crab was tucked inside the ornate shell of a wentletrap snail.
Hakai Institute research technician Carly Janusson submitted this two-part entry of a black-clawed crab megalopa—the last larval stage before the crab settles down on the sea floor—and a closeup of diatoms on its eye (second photo). The high level of detail is thanks to a scanning electron microscope on loan for the bioblitz from the University of Victoria’s Advanced Microscopy Facility. This baby blackclaw crab was one of many plankton collected by a light trap, a contraption that illuminates at night to attract and trap tiny planktonic creatures.
Hakai scientists and technicians use a careful photo-taking process—good lighting, flashes, and a black background— to document bioblitz organisms in the lab. The approach helps to reveal the beauty of less obviously charismatic organisms. Case in point: the detailed coloring of this Amphicteis mucronata tubeworm, also submitted by polychaete expert Leslie Harris.
This delicately branched red seaweed, Symphyocladiella dendroidea, was the only sample of Symphyocladiella the seaweed experts saw during the bioblitz, so they suspect it’s an uncommon one for the Quadra Island area. Patrick Martone, an algae expert at the University of British Columbia, captured this crisp microscope image showcasing the seaweed’s individual cells.
This baby east Pacific red octopus was part of a rare three-way tie for Species of the Day, along with the following two animals. Between its tiny tentacles, outsized eyes, and confetti-like chromatophores, it’s easy to see what made it a crowd favorite. The lentil-sized hatchling was one of a handful of its kind that turned up among other tiny animals in a light trap. Amanda Winans, a marine zooplankton ecologist with the University of Washington, and Hakai Institute research technician Kim Bedard photographed and identified this wee cephalopod.
While this sea angel came from the ocean depths around Quadra Island, collected with other zooplankton using a net tow, these ethereal (and surprisingly fierce) sea snail relatives can also turn up in light traps deployed at the surface. It was another submission from the plankton photography team of Amanda Winans and Kim Bedard.
Bioblitzer Henry Choong found and submitted this sample of Sertularella pacifica, a species of hydroid. Like their coral and sea anemone relatives, hydroids live fixed to a substrate. This was the first time it had been found around Quadra Island, marking a new location for the species within its known range between Haida Gwaii and California. Choong, a hydroid expert and the Royal BC Museum’s curator of invertebrate zoology, originally described S. pacifica as a new species in 2015.
For its glamor shot, this flattop crab, submitted by Hakai Institute research technician Lauren Krzus, obligingly showed off the blue mouthparts that distinguish it from a similar-looking porcelain crab species.