Working with a wide range of partners, the Pascagoula River Audubon Center is seeking support for the establishment of the Pascagoula River All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. Modeled after the only other example of its kind (Great Smoky Mountains National Park All Taxa Inventory), the long term goals of this effort are to inventory and document all forms of living organisms found within the river basin and to develop checklist, reports, maps, databases, and natural history profiles that will describe the biodiversity of the watershed.

Key collaborative partners include the Pascagoula River Basin Alliance, the Mississippi Museum of Natural History, the Mississippi Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy, and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. Key supporting partners include Mississippi State University , the University of Southern Mississippi , the University of Mississippi and the Gulf Coast Community College .

Much of the fieldwork and collecting of organisms will be supported by volunteers as part of citizen sciences programs and events held throughout the year and across the basin. The program will include training on sampling and collecting methods, as well as the natural history of the area. A key component of the program will be periodic 24-hour sampling events called BioBlitzs. These events are designed to bring together technical experts, volunteers and the general public, for intense and focused surveys of key locations across the basin. These events combine sampling and collecting with education about the kinds of organisms that are found and documented.

This long-term program will be key to linking citizens with this unique river system while also building a valuable database on the biodiversity of the region. This program will also support the greater global effort call the “Encyclopedia of Life”, the brainchild of the world-renowned naturalist Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University .

Web site for Great Smoky Mountains National Park All Taxa Inventory is www.dlia.org/index.shtml