[Odonata-l] FW: State/Regional Odonate Surveys
Bob Glotzhober
bglotzhober at ohiohistory.org
Tue Aug 21 04:53:05 PDT 2007
This is intended for Chris Hill. I sent it directly to him using the
e-mail listed in his posting, and it bounced back twice as
undeliverable. If someone out there knows his correct e-mail - please
forward it. Otherwise, my apologies for sending this to everyone!
And good luck to Chris and his survey of SC!
Bob
====================
Robert C. Glotzhober 614/ 297-2633
Senior Curator, Natural History bglotzhober at ohiohistory.org
Ohio Historical Society Fax: 614/ 297-2546
1982 Velma Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43211-2497
Visit the website of the Ohio Historical Society at:
www.ohiohistory.org and check out our online collections catalog.
See or purchase Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio or the Cedar Bog
Symposium II at OHS's new E-Store: http://www.ohiohistorystore.com/
Visit the Ohio Odonata website at:
http://www.marietta.edu/~odonata/index.html
________________________________
From: Bob Glotzhober
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 7:39 AM
To: 'Chris Hill'
Subject: RE: [Odonata-l] State/Regional Odonate Surveys
Chris:
I organized the Ohio Odonata Survey in 1990-91. It really took nearly
two years just to get it organized and planned -- but I suspect with all
the web-presence about Odonata today, that could be cut in half. At that
time I was able to locate five other people in the state who were
knowledgeable about dragonflies and damselflies. We finally met in early
winter of 1991, and started with workshops for interested volunteers in
March of 1991. I'll try to answer your other questions in sequence
below, inserted into your text.
Hope this helps.
Bob
====================
Robert C. Glotzhober 614/ 297-2633
Senior Curator, Natural History bglotzhober at ohiohistory.org
Ohio Historical Society Fax: 614/ 297-2546
1982 Velma Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43211-2497
Visit the website of the Ohio Historical Society at:
www.ohiohistory.org and check out our online collections catalog.
See or purchase Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio or the Cedar Bog
Symposium II at OHS's new E-Store: http://www.ohiohistorystore.com/
Visit the Ohio Odonata website at:
http://www.marietta.edu/~odonata/index.html
-----Original Message-----
From: odonata-l-bounces at listhost.ups.edu
[mailto:odonata-l-bounces at listhost.ups.edu] On Behalf Of Chris Hill
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 5:22 PM
To: odonata-l
Subject: Re: [Odonata-l] State/Regional Odonate Surveys
(Showing bad form by responding to my own post here).
They say that if you want responses on the the internet, don't post a
question, post an incorrect assertion, and people will jump in to
correct you by the dozens. So I'll try again:
Conducting a statewide survey of odonates is EASY!
Will that bring some of you out of the bushes? I know you're out there!
Thanks Giff and Wade for their replies.
Chris
On Aug 14, 2007, at 12:43 PM, Chris Hill wrote:
> Hi All,
> I live in South Carolina, a state whose odonate fauna has not
> received a lot of attention. (See Dennis Paulson's maps linked at
> this page for details: http://www.ups.edu/x7040.xml )
>
> Although I am chronically disorganized, so a poor candidate to
> organize anyone else, I still keep thinking (as I peck away at
> documenting the fauna of my home county) of the possibility of a
> statewide survey effort.
>
> I know some of you out there must have been involved in such, so I
> had some questions for you.
>
> First of all, do you have any recommendations for things I should
> read (about your own survey - process and/or results)? I welcome any
> personal anecdotes and advice, but I understand completely if you
> want to save your breath and tell me "go read this."
>
> But if you're willing to offer your personal experiences...
>
> 1. Who initiated and organized the survey?
I initiated and organized the survey. I gathered together all the
(5) people who I could find that knew anything about Odes in our state.
After meeting, I sent out letters to colleges, university, metro park
district naturalists, and amateur naturalist organizations throughout
the state soliciting volunteers. We planned and organized a training
workshop where we went over basic Odonata biology, identification to the
family level (this was before any books were available other than
Needham & Westfall's 1954 and Corbet's "Alaska and Canada" three volume
technical books), and instructions on collecting techniques, data to
record, and how to forward material for identification and addition to
our database.
> 2. Was there any involvement from state, provincial, or other
> regional government agencies?
> Once we got started, we applied for and obtained a grant from the
Ohio Division of Wildlife as part of their non-game granting program.
They provided funding for collecting materials, storage cabinet for
specimens, and mileage reimbursement for workers. Latter that was
supplemented with a USF&WS grant funneled through ODW which also funded
a student intern who was able to concentrate 40 hours a week during the
summer on collecting. The rest of the workers (including myself - most
collecting on personal time) were all volunteers.
> 3. Who did the actual surveying?
> We had on and off about 30 to 40 volunteers - some of whom were
very dedicated and collected dozens to hundreds of specimens, some who
only worked one or two seasons and collected only a handful of
specimens. The volunteers were most amateur naturalists, birdwatchers,
lepidopterist types. Only a small handful of us were professional
biologists - and for the most part we did our work on our own time - not
under our employers' auspices. After several years, we were also able to
access data from the Ohio EPA and their macro-invertebrate/stream
quality monitoring program. Some of that data (especially gomphids) had
to be "tossed out" as to the problem of accurate ID of some gomphid
larvae at the time. Specimens were turned into members of our "steering
committee" who preformed or confirmed most of the IDs. In this day and
age of numerous field guides and manuals, that could be changed
somewhat.
> [*How* was the surveying done? I put this in brackets because I
> imagine the details for most surveys are published, but if you want
> to give a brief synopsis of who did what how, I'm all ears]
> Multiple different approaches. Initially, we tried to find
volunteers from all over the state who could collect in their part of
the state. Within a year or two, we put together "Targeted Species Fact
Sheets" giving background and habitat information on species of concern
that were not turning up in surveys. Some volunteers planned long trips
to search for such species. We also targeted portions of the state that
were not otherwise being covered.
> 4. What was the outcome? Think broadly here. For instance, I know
> Giff Beaton and others have surveyed Georgia pretty extensively in
> the last 5 years and one outcome was improvement of Giff's
> book, ,Dragonflies and Damselflies of Georgia and the Southeast.
> Even if your survey efforts had no published outcome, I'm interested
> in hearing about other positives - development of a local community
> of oders, training and increased knowledge for participants, whatever.
> In 2002 we published "The Dragonflies and Damselflies of Ohio" - a
364 page manual with keys and species information for all 162 species
known at that time. As other manuals and field guides were just
beginning to come out at that time, we designed our keys with numerous
illustrations to assist in ID for those not familiar with the technical
manuals that were mostly still out of print. Most of the 27,000-28,000
records in our database (probably about 26,000)were available at that
time to create our county distribution maps and adult flight season
charts. See the OOS website at
http://www.marietta.edu/~odonata/index.html for samples of our maps and
flight charts.
> 5. How long did it take?
> We initially followed the plan of the Ohio Lepidoptera Survey,
which spent 7 years. However, our group was much smaller than theirs, so
we expanded it a bit to 9 years - then continued at a slower pace while
we prepared our book. From initiation to publication was about 10-11
years. As we drew to a close, members of the survey expressed an
interest in continuing in some form - so in February of 1998 we
incorporated as a not-for-profit "Ohio Odonata Society". We continue to
do various survey work, research, field trips, a newsletter, website and
an annual meeting.
> 6. If you're in or near SC, do you want to sign up? :-)
> Not near - but wishing you luck. I'd be happy to respond to any
other questions you may have. By the way, the newsletter was an
important communication devise among volunteers from the very beginning,
as were our annual training workshops and meetings.
Bob Glotzhober
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
> **********************************************************************
> **
> Christopher E. Hill
> Biology Department
> Coastal Carolina University
> Conway, SC 29528-1954
> chill AT coastal.edu
> http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
>
> All models are wrong. Some models are useful.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Odonata-l at listhost.ups.edu
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************************************************************************
Christopher E. Hill
Biology Department
Coastal Carolina University
Conway, SC 29528-1954
chill AT coastal.edu
http://ww2.coastal.edu/chill/chill.htm
"A lively curiosity has spread among all classes of thinking people
as to the names of the birds they see, what they feed on, and
something of their coming and going, with the result that the demand
for bird books has become very great."
-- T. Gilbert Pearson, editor in chief, Birds of America, 1917 (New
York: Garden City Books, 1936) ix.
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