By Buster Barkley, lead reporter
Great Basin National Park had a very specific assignment for volunteers this month: find the trees that are behaving least like they received the memo.
The National Park Service scheduled its Tree Outliers BioBlitz for August 5 through 7, inviting participants to help locate the lowest and highest examples of each tree species in the park. The plan included talks on tree species and distribution, hikes in different park drainages, and a final morning gathering and breakfast. Registered participants were also offered camping at Grey Cliffs Campground.
In ordinary conversation, a tree growing low on a hillside is simply a tree. In a BioBlitz, it can be a data point with a small but undeniable air of having taken a surprising career turn. The park’s own description calls a BioBlitz a short-term effort to learn about local biodiversity by concentrating on a particular plant or animal group. For 2026, the focus was trees.
The project was people-first science in the best sense: park staff, volunteers, and interested visitors were asked to walk, observe, compare notes, and help ecologists understand where species are turning up. No tree was accused of wrongdoing. But the lowest and highest individuals of each species were apparently due for a careful check-in.
A short survey with a long view
The NPS says Great Basin’s annual BioBlitzes use a brief, concentrated window to build a snapshot of what lives across different habitats. The park’s 2025 bumblebee BioBlitz, for example, recorded more than 380 observations on iNaturalist over two field days, according to the 2026 BioBlitz page. That is not a promise about this year’s tree results; it is a reminder that many careful observations can add up quickly.
Great Basin’s science page also describes the annual BioBlitz as a way for visitors to help document plant and animal diversity. This year’s tree survey gave that invitation an especially entertaining frame: go looking for the ones growing unusually high or low, then let the experts work out what the pattern may mean.
Buster’s desk note: The trees were not lost. They were merely positioned with confidence.
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