98th ESA Annual Meeting (August 4 -- 9, 2013)

August 03 - 09, 2013

FT 8

CANCELLED Urban Bioblitz in a Riverside Redevelopment Area

Spend the day along the mighty Mississippi River, enjoy a great lunch featuring Cuban food, and help capture baseline data and track changes in a redeveloped park with a tornado-damaged floodplain forest in north Minneapolis. This year's Urban BioBlitz will take place in North Mississippi Regional Park, a three mile long urban park on the banks of the Mississippi. Owned by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, the site has seen tremendous changes over the last 100 years. The park was created on land formerly home to lumberyards, public housing, streets, and small single family homes. Since 1990 park development has focused on infrastructure like trails and picnic areas, and natural area restoration including invasive removals and reintroduction of native species.  

 

There are two BioBlitz focus areas.  The first area is the recreated prairie and ephemeral ponds located on the former site of the 1940's Mississippi Courts public housing.  Since the housing was demolished in 1987, the degraded site was reshaped and replanted, and has taken on new life. The BioBlitz will catalogue plant and animal diversity in the prairie and the area surrounding the park's nature center. These data will be used to target development and restoration planning by the Park Board. A floodplain forest heavily damaged by a 2011 tornado is the second focus area of the BioBlitz.  A survey of plants and animals in this area will create a record of natives and non-natives, and provide baseline data for future management plans.

 

Neighborhood volunteers and teens have already been participating in the Minnesota Odonata Project and the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. The BioBlitz will highlight and build upon this work - and help inspire the community to actively engage in monitoring the health of the park. The BioBlitz provides an opportunity for mentoring and learning exchange among participants including ESA members, student interns, neighborhood and Master Naturalist volunteers, park staff, and the Mississippi River Green Team, a conservation based crew that employs at-risk youth from the surrounding community.  Join us!