March 29, 2014- DNA Everywhere helped Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s Dr. Eric Dubinsky count a record breaking number of species during the National Geographic BioBlitz in Golden Gate National Recreational Area on Saturday. Dubinksy and company collected water and sediment samples from Lobos Creek and Baker Beach early Friday morning and extracted bacterial DNA using the DNA Everywhere method at the Chrissy Field Center Friday afternoon. DNA was brought back to LBL and analyzed over night using the Berkeley PhyloChip.

National Geographic’s BioBlitz is a 24-hour event where volunteer scientists, students, families and other community members work to find as many species of plants, animals, microbes and any other organisms as possible. Each year the BioBlitz takes place in a different national park.

The event came to a close at 4:00pm on Saturday, March 29 with a final species count of 2034. Of the 2034 counted, LBL counted 916 species of bacteria and 68 species of archaea, which accounted for almost half of the total species inventoried. Check out NatGeo’s coverage of DNA Everywhere and the PhyloChip here: