- Blitzes are swift, vigorous attacks and usually part of military parlance.
- But there was nothing military about citizens as they looked up at trees across India on December 1 and 2: they were on a ‘bioblitz’, recording the flowering and fruiting of common trees.
- The Winter Tree Quest’s results now reveal that India’s tree-watchers observed almost 15,000 trees during this short time.
- As many as 121 individuals and teams from 50 schools and 34 colleges from across 23 States in India participated in the Bioblitz (a biological survey where participants try to record all the targeted species within an area) conducted by SeasonWatch (a citizen science programme of Bengaluru’s National Centre for Biological Sciences).
- Participants observed individual trees in their neighbourhoods and campuses, and contributed information including species, its location, proportions of flowers, fruits and leaves.
- They then uploaded this data online.
