STEPS TO USING A BIOCUBE
1. DEPLOY
Building your biocube
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You’ll need a Biocube Kit or 12 one-foot lengths of ¼-inch aluminum tubing,
and 24 pieces of aluminum or copper wire, about 4 inches long
Bend pieces of wire in half so that they are L-shaped
Hold three L-shaped pieces of wire together and insert into tubes to make a
3-way corner joint
Repeat this step for each corner until you have a cube
Think about what an interesting biocube site would be
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What is your goal, e.g., to detect the largest number of species possible? To
examine the community of a particular habitat, like a rotting log?
What might complicate your task? Is your cubic foot permissible and
appropriate to dig up and collect, or should your examination be noninvasive? Will your cubic foot contain fast-moving organisms likely to escape
detection?
Try to think of one more thing that might affect your study (e.g.: night vs. day,
season, weather). Complete a Site Observation Sheet
Now you have an idea of what kind of cubic foot you're looking for. Proceed
to your study area and have a look around.
Select a biocube site
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Select a site for your biocube, and describe it. Before collecting, sorting and
analyzing the contents of the cube, it is important to explore and document
the place. How could or does what’s going on near the cube potentially affect
the community inside? Overhanging structures, shading, water level, changes
that might occur in other seasons, manmade alterations, etc.
2. EXPLORE
Observe Your biocube
 Observe quietly from a short distance away. Do any birds, small mammals,
or large insects visit your cube?
 Observe close up, gently investigating around plants or other cover. If your
cube contains air and substantial plant cover, you can sweep an insect
net through it a few times to collect some of the mobile insect visitors. If your
cube is in water, a fine meshed dip net might catch you some swimming
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visitors. Have some containers handy (small, clear 2-4 oz. jars are good.
Something you can close with a lid) to house these specimens.
Complete a Cube in Context Worksheet
Collect Your biocube
 It doesn’t have to be perfect. If part of your cube is in water, collect
a representative bucket of about the right volume. If it contains sediment
or soil, use a trowel or shovel to dig it out roughly to the edges of your cube of
space and transfer into another container.
 Speed counts. You are attempting to take a ‘snapshot’ of a biological
community. The more you dillydally, the more individuals and species will
simply leave the area of the cube.
 You’re not taking anything apart yet. Do your best not to disrupt your slab of
soil, any plants growing in it, and so on. Your biocube will probably be in a
few pieces, but treat each piece delicately.
Sort your biocube
 When you set up to sort, keep the temperature and other conditions of your
biocube content as stable as possible. A black bucket or plastic bag in
direct sunlight will warm up quickly, so keep dark containers in the shade.
Small samples of mud or wet sediment will dry if left exposed; keep these
in covered containers.
 A large, white surface is great for sorting — a tray or shallow dish if
you’re working with water. If part of your biocube is water, have some clean
water from the same habitat on-hand.
 Sort a little of your biocube at a time; be patient. You can imagine that many
of the residents are hiding. Give them time to start moving. Look in the
corners of your container.
 As you find your organisms, put those that look the same — that you think
are the same species — together in containers. Plastic spoons and soft
forceps can be helpful in capturing some animals.
3. IDENTIFY
Count, photograph, and identify the residents of your biocube
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For each species of resident you found, count or estimate how many
were present (long dark grass, 4 separate tufts; earth worms, 3; large black
ants, 2; small brown ants, approx. 40...)
For each species, take one or several photographs of one individual. Fancy
SLR cameras are nice, but a phone camera will do just fine. If your specimen
is small, try photographing it through a magnifying glass. Try to catch all the
distinctive-looking details. Close-up shots are helpful. So are shots from
different angles (e.g., one from above, one from the side). Placing a ruler in
the background allows your photo to document body size.
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For each species, see how specifically you can identify it. If it is a “bug" of
some kind, is it an insect, or an arachnid, or a millipede, or a pill bug
(isopod)? If it is an insect, is it an ant, a bee, a fly (careful, those two can be
tricky!) a dragonfly, or something else? Here is a list of some free online
resources that can help you identify unknown organisms, including
specialized guides for particular kinds of organisms and regions of the world,
and more general identification aids. If you have a local field guide to insects,
plants, mushrooms, crustaceans, etc., of your region, this can be extremely
helpful.
4. SHARE
Report your findings
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The biocube leader should log on to iNaturalist and coordinate upload of the
biocube data. (We recommend that only adults do this, as iNaturalist activity
is pinpointed on a publicly visible map.)
Go to the Biocube Project and add your observations to the project. Get
detailed instructions.
Post one iNat observation within your Biocube Trip for each type of
organism you have, including the ID, as specific as you could make it, the
number of specimens you have of that organism, and one or several
representative photos. If you want assistance identifying an organism more
specifically, tag it for the ID please feed so the iNat community will know
you’re looking for help.
When all your observations are posted, check your Trip profile to see
summary statistics about the diversity of your biocube. You can compare
your biocube with others around the country and download your dataset if
you’d like to graph or analyze your data further.
5. CLEAN UP
Minimize the impact of your study on the landscape
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Did you take soil, rocks, dead wood, or other substrate from the biocube
site? Bring it back, as close as possible to the same place.
Do you have living organisms still in your possession? If you do not intend
to preserve them or study them further, take them back and return them to
suitable habitat as close as you can to where they were found.
Putting it back where you found it is usually, but not always, the best way to
go. If your cube is from the edge of a small vernal pool, you may not want to
return water to it that could be contaminated, or a very different
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temperature. You may not want to put wet sediment back where it will cause
a lot of turbidity in the water.
Will you not have the opportunity to return to your study site after you
collect your cube? In that case, during your collection visit, think about the
impact you are having and how to minimize it.
Biocube Website: qrius.si.edu/biocube