But what is it about mushrooms that so captures our collective curiosity? It’s a difficult question to answer because the answer differs depending on who you ask.

This past spring, the UWBG hosted the first ever bioblitz in Seattle.  A “bioblitz” is a biological scavenger hunt that aims to inventory all the various organisms living in a given area – the “blitz” part signifies that this inventory is taken within a short period of time. There are several reasons why the UWBG aims to make bioblitzes a regularly occurring tradition: to better fulfill our mission of sustaining managed to natural ecosystems to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity in an urban environment to bridge the gap between the academic world and the every-day world by harnessing the power of citizen scientists.