Indiana Dunes boasts 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, plentiful undulating sand dunes, swamps, prairie, and forest land.

According to Carl Sandburg, "Indiana Dunes are to the Midwest what the Grand Canyon is to the West." Costa Dylan, Superintendent of Indiana Dunes, agrees. "Did you know that there are more varieties of orchids at our park than in the state of Florida?" he asks. "I'm looking forward to adapting BioBlitz to our diverse, fragile ecosystem."

We are too. And you're invited.

Photograph by Christopher Light, courtesy National Park Service

POSTED BY EMILY LANDIS AND FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 5:59 PM PDT

Photograph by Les Gainous

POSTED BY EMILY LANDIS/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 3:18 PM

Teams turned up 1,364 unique plant and animal species by noon today--more than twice the hoard volunteers ID'd in the same time at Rock Creek Park last year. More still will come in the days ahead as bio-sleuths resolve the identities of a slew of mystery species.

For now, at least, the breakdown looks like this:

Algae - 22
Amphibian - 4
Arthropod - 628
Bird - 86
Fish - 6
Lichen - 3
Mammal - 12
Marine Invertebrate - 91
Other Invertebrate - 2
Plant - 495
Reptile - 15

TOTAL - 1364

The Celebrate Biodiversity Festival's in full swing, with the Banana Slug String Band on the main stage. We'll have more updates in the hours to come, so stay tuned!

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 1:26 PM PDT

Photograph by Phil Crosby

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 11:44 AM PDT

Jocelyn works with the National Park Service to bring EcoHelper students from the Los Angeles Unified School District to hike, pull weeds, and replant healthy native plant species. Students get hooked on plants and keep coming back. "Sometimes I wonder if we're getting through," says Jocelyn. "It can take years, but you can tell when it really sinks in, and the students say 'Hey, I understand this! Plants are cool!'"

The Mediterranean climate that accounts for today's perfect weather also allows more than 1,200 native plant species to flourish in the Santa Monica Mountains. This natural diversity is threatened by some 70 species of prolific non-native plants.

Why does it matter? Exotic "invasives" like eucalyptus, storksbill, and horehound get a head start in the growing season, towering over native species in no time at all, shading them out of their territory and sucking up more than their share of water. Adding insult to injury, when some invasives die, they create thick mats of organic material that prevent native species from getting established. What's more, many invasives increase the rate and intensity of fires in these tinderbox hills.

Photograph of Julian McCoy with invasive mustard grass by Phil Crosby

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Native plant species identified so far: 302

Non-native plant species identified so far: 107

POSTED BY EMILY LANDIS AND FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 11:07 AM

Photograph by Phil Crosby

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 9:50 AM PDT

Photograph by Phil Crosby

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 9:17 AM PDT

Photograph by Phil Crosby

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 7:59 AM

Wherever you live, someone may be planning a BioBlitz near you! Here are a few on the horizon:

* Montpelier, Vermont BioBlitz
* Nova Scotia BioBlitz
* Oklahoma BioBlitz
* Rhode Island BioBlitz

Photograph by Ford Cochran/NGS

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 5:20 AM PDT

Photograph by Mary Crooks/NGS

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 4:44 AM PDT

There's still hot coffee--terrific news, since the temperature's down to the high 30s (Fahrenheit) and I can see every breath. A solitary National Park Service ranger still plugs away at a laptop, entering the names of observed and identified organisms into the master species database. The NG Maps crew continues to pin photos and stories to their interactive map. The night sky brims with stars and passing satellites.

Quietly in the dark, the Santa Monica Mountains BioBlitz marks a milestone: 683 logged species, more than turned up during the entire 'Blitz last year in Rock Creek Park (where at noon on Saturday the tally stood at 666). Subsequent species identifications brought that number up, but will likely do the same for the total here.

Biodiversity lives out there in the darkness, even if the very plants seem sound asleep.

Photograph by Ford Cochran

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 3:30 AM

Fortunately for this year-old bat, biologist Diana Simons rescued and adopted it.

Fires can cause devastating financial loss--more than 1,500 human homes were destroyed in the October 2007 California fires. They kill much wildlife too, but are an essential part of natural ecological cycles.

Photograph by Jocelyn Holt/NPS

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 1:33 AM PDT

A field team just arrived at Base Camp with, in the words of one volunteer, "a pretty humongous spider. This is, like, the main event!"

Blaine Hebert of Pasadena City College, who led the spider search, isn't immediately certain what kind of spider this is. "I'm not even sure what family it's in. I've encountered three or four today that I've never collected before."

Blaine's group carries bags of small sealed plastic tubs containing wolf spiders, orb spiders, a sun spider (ironically named--they come out at night), and several varieties of daddy longlegs.

Next up? "I'm headed out now to find some scorpions."

Photograph by Mark Christmas/NGS

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 12:14 AM PDT

Rock Creek Park is adjacent to Silver Spring. How much more impressive, then, when Gary showed up in Santa Monica, more than 2,000 miles from home, with all those insects! Do you ship thousands of insects across the country or try to check them at the airport? Neither, says Gary. "I drove here!"

Photograph by Ford Cochran/NGS

POSTED BY FORD COCHRAN/BIOBLITZ TEAM AT 9:14 PM PDT