IV Biomarathon of Spanish Flora

As has been done in the last four years, the Systematics Working Group of the Spanish Society of Botany (SEBOT), organizes this year the IV Spanish Flora Biomarathon, which will take place between May 16 and 19. , to coincide with International Plant Fascination Day (May 18). This annual event aims to combat “plant blindness”, understood as the disconnection of a large part of the population from botany. This prevents us from appreciating the plant diversity, threatened in the Sixth Mass Extinction, and from dedicating efforts to protect it.

Days: May 16, 17, 18 and 19

Location: throughout the Spanish State

What is done during the flora biomarathon?

During the biomarathon, with the collaboration of various entities (universities, research centers, naturalist associations or secondary education institutes), various activities are organized (excursions, talks, workshops...) to disseminate botanical knowledge and encourage interaction between the scientific community and citizens.

How can I participate?

To participate, you only need to have the iNaturalist citizen science application installed (available for Android and iOS). Each user can upload photographs of the plants observed during these days, and their observations will be linked to the general Biomarathon project or the corresponding territorial subproject ( in our case, Catalonia). The main advantage of this application is that it does not require prior knowledge in botany, since other users are in charge of identifying what is observed.

If I am an expert, how can I contribute?
In addition to uploading observations like any citizen, you can help validate the observations made to inaturalist either by identifying those observations that are not at the species level or by confirming those observations that are well assigned to the species. If the validations are carried out during the days of the biomarathon, citizens feel encouraged to add new ones.
You can also participate in the subsequent datablitz by teaching a complicated group of plants through an online chat.

Join the largest citizen participation event focused on botany in Catalonia!