About Bioblitzes

Written by students at the University of St Andrews, as part of the Summer Teams Enterprise Programme (STEP) 2025

Our BioBlitz focuses on the Arctic regions of Svalbard and East Greenland. It’s a great way to engage with Arctic wildlife, whilst helping to preserve biodiversity for the future. Once the data has been uploaded to iNaturalist, it can be used to monitor populations and identify at-risk species.

A lot of action taken towards supporting biodiversity first depends on monitoring species and identifying issues, which is why projects like this bioblitz are so important. Arctic biodiversity in particular is difficult to monitor due to its remote location, so this bioblitz will assist scientists and organisations by assessing these hard to reach areas.

A bioblitz will provide valuable data to monitor species with declining populations, and help us observe the knock-on effect this has had on the ecosystem. It can also give us an idea of how an area’s climate has changed, based on which species populations increase or decrease in these conditions. Bioblitzes can assist current projects that are already in place, by providing more data for monitoring and solving issues. For example, the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program is a project of the Arctic Council that aims to observe and respond to biodiversity pressures affecting Arctic species.

Remember, monitoring biodiversity is critical on a local and global scale. As the climate changes, species will have to adapt to new, harsher conditions. Whilst on a global scale, there may be little change in populations, numbers can more rapidly change on a local scale. This is why it’s so important to monitor individual populations of an area and see how they’ve changed, relative to that area.