INDIANAPOLIS — Just how biodiverse are Indiana’s forests? Very, according to a multi-year study of one of Indiana’s oldest and most undisturbed state forests.

The Indiana Forest Alliance’s inventory has revealed that this diminishing forest is habitat for important and endangered species and even newly discovered creatures. These include rare bats and three species of spider identified in the state for the first time. Scientists have also found a new species of spider, a male, and are now working with taxonomists to describe, name and publish information about their discovery.

The Indiana Forest Alliance is conducting an Ecoblitz, an ongoing inventory of the plants and animals on a 900-acre tract of older forest in the heart of the Morgan-Monroe/Yellowwood State Forest Back Country Area, near Martinsville.

Now in its third year, with support from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, the study is giving scientists a glimpse of the biological diversity in maturing hardwood forests on Indiana’s public lands. No such comprehensive inventory has ever been done before on the state or national forest lands in Indiana. To conduct the study, IFA has recruited nine different teams of scientists from 11 Indiana colleges and universities.

Results from this inventory are illustrating that a rich diversity of native life — plants, fungi, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, spiders and other invertebrates — exists in this forest, with some 1,254 species identified in the first two years and hundreds more being identified in 2016, the third year of the study. Eighteen species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians on the federal or state lists of endangered species and species of special concern have been found in this forest.

“The Ecoblitz results are confirmation that Indiana’s maturing hardwood forests are remarkable storehouses of biodiversity,” said Dr. Leslie Bishop, retired arachnologist from Earlham College. Bishop’s team documented 100 different spider species so far in the Ecoblitz area, including one never before documented in Indiana. “These results show that we have only begun to scratch the surface of the diversity of invertebrate creatures in this mature hardwood forest.”

“This data should have a bearing on decisions about logging in our state forests,” said Jeff Stant, executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance. “The current state administration has approved a policy to log through 95 percent of our taxpayer-owned state forests within the next twelve years, cutting 8,000 acres per year. But areas like this need special protection and should be permanently protected from logging.”

While IFA has led the Ecoblitz from the beginning, it has worked in partnership with several environmentally and scientifically minded organizations including the Hoosier Environmental Council, the Knob and Valley Audubon Society, Hoosier Chapter Sierra Club, Hoosier Herpetological Society, Southcentral Indiana Chapter of the Indiana Plant and Wildflower Society and the Hoosier Mushroom Society.

Reports from the first two years of the study can be found here. IFA is currently awaiting permission from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to release its most current findings.