An ‘Alien’ in Antarctica

A tiny flightless midge, Eretmoptera murphyi, accidentally introduced to Antarctica in the 1960s, has spread across Signy Island and now dominates the soil ecosystem. Its larvae feed on dead plant material, enriching the soil with nitrogen and changing conditions in ways that could help other species invade. Octavia’s research reveals these midge-altered soils also release more greenhouse gases, meaning this small insect could be quietly accelerating climate change in one of the planet’s most fragile environments.

Q&A with Octavia Brayley

Octavia Brayley is a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Birmingham and British Antarctic Survey, principally investigating the ecological impacts of a non-native insect species on Signy Island, Antarctica. Her work integrates biogeochemistry and microbiology to assess environmental effects, recently expanding to the microbiomes and physiology of related insects in sub-Antarctic regions. Beyond research, Octavia was the previous co-head of education and outreach for the UK Polar Network, and hosts the Polar Diaries podcast.

1. Did you find a difference in the microbiology of soils with versus without Eretmoptera murphyi present?

This is a really interesting area for investigation, but sadly it was not something I was able to look into as part of my PhD. There have, however, been some previous studies that have looked at the microbiology of soils on Signy Island, and we did, as part of my research, identify a few groups of soil bacteria in Signy soils that hadn’t previously been documented. Whether or not these have anything to do with E. murphyi I cannot comment on. They may be commensal microorganisms which came along with E. murphyi, but more research would definitely be needed before drawing a conclusion. An exciting way to investigate this question would be to collect E. murphyi-associated soils from South Georgia island – its native environment – and compare them against soils from the same island but from places where E. murphyi is known to be absent. The difficulty with this is that it’s actually almost impossible these days to find E. murphyi on South Georgia! It seems to have practically disappeared. This may be linked to the introduction of a different non-native species to South Georgia – a predatory beetle – which feeds on E. murphyi there.

2. How effective are the biosecurity protocols on Antarctica these days?

In my opinion, the biosecurity protocols for scientists are currently not the best and sorely need to be updated. There is a specific chemical called Virkon which is currently used by Antarctic scientists to sanitise boots and equipment when landing on islands in and around Antarctica. A study was done a few years ago looking at how effective Virkon was at killing Eretmoptera murphyi. Turns out – even when dropped into a vat of the stuff – the midge survived. If E. murphyi can survive Virkon then it’s likely other hardy Antarctic invertebrates that might be introduced in the future can survive it too. I don’t know so much about how effective it is at sterilising plant seeds, but I would guess it’s also imperfect. Like invertebrates, the seeds of plants in this part of the world can be very robust. The biosecurity measures for tourists are, fortunately, a lot better. There are also very strict guidelines in place regarding which islands tourists can visit and whereabouts they can go on said islands. I suspect Peter Convey – giving another entoLIVE about Antarctic Invertebrates later this year in March – will have more to say on the topic of biosecurity too, if still of interest.

3. Why is increased nitrogen concentration in Antarctic soils a problem?

Great question. Increased nitrogen concentrations are actually not necessarily a problem, in the short-term at least. I personally hypothesise that the plants present on Signy Island (mosses and the like) and perhaps also some of the invertebrates might actually benefit from the higher nitrogen concentrations in the short-term. Higher nitrate levels means more nutrients for growth in plants, for example. I don’t expect terrible consequences immediately, by any means. What is concerning, however, is the long-term impact. If E. murphyi is boosting soil nitrogen on Signy Island currently, it is possible that this will open a window for more non-native species to establish in the future. Again, arrival of new species doesn’t necessarily mean negative consequences for the native wildlife, but there is a risk. Antarctic ecosystems are inherently fragile, so any upset to the natural balance is alarming.

4. Do you anticipate that there might be knock-on effects of elevated soil nutrients on some of the larger Antarctic animals?

Another interesting question. As far as I know, nobody has – so far – officially studied this topic in the Antarctic context. The larger Antarctic animals – famous things like penguins and seals, for example – do sometimes use terrestrial environments for part of their life cycle, but generally I wouldn’t expect a chemical change in soil conditions to affect them greatly. The most important parts of their lives are spent in the water, really. They are only really on land for mating and ‘chilling out’ (pun intended?). A slightly tangential fun fact, however, is that both penguins and seals do interact with terrestrial nutrient cycles in Antarctica through defecating; their poop creates ‘pulses’ of nutrient input to the terrestrial environment!

5. Does anything eat Eretmoptera murphyi?

Nothing on Signy Island, no, but there is a non-native predatory beetle found on South Georgia Island which eats the midge. Some people have suggested introducing that beetle to Signy Island too, but I am very skeptical of that being a good idea! History has given us plenty of examples of how introducing one species to control another has made things even worse than they originally were!

Literature References

  1. Bartlett et al. (2023) ‘Ecological consequences of a single introduced species to the Antarctic: Terrestrial impacts of the invasive midge Eretmoptera murphyi on Signy Island’: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2023.108965
  2. Bartlett et al. (2020) ‘An insect invasion of Antarctica: the past, present and future distribution of Eretmoptera murphyi (Diptera, Chironomidae) on Signy Island’: https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12389
  3. Bartlett et al. (2021) ‘The effectiveness of Virkon® S disinfectant against an invasive insect and implications for Antarctic biosecurity practices’: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102020000413
  4. Bergstrom (2022) ‘Maintaining Antarctica’s isolation from non-native species’: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.10.002
  5. Brayley et al. (2025) ‘The microbiome of an invasive Antarctic insect, Eretmoptera murphyi (Diptera: Chironomidae), and its potential role in nutrient cycling’: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7744438/v1
  6. Convey (2010) ‘Terrestrial biodiversity in Antarctica – Recent advances and future challenges’: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polar.2010.03.003
  7. Hughes et al. (2015) ‘Biological invasions in terrestrial Antarctica: What is the current status and can we respond?’: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0896-6
  8. Hughes et al. (2013) ‘The non-native chironomid Eretmoptera murphyi in Antarctica: erosion of the barriers to invasion’: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-012-0282-1
  9. Leihy et al. (2023) ‘Introduced and invasive alien species of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean Islands’: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02113-2
  10. Pyšek et al. (2020) ‘Scientists’ warning on invasive alien species’: https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12627

Further Info

entoLIVE

entoLIVE webinars feature guest invertebrate researchers delving into their own invertebrate research. All events are free to attend and are suitable for adults of all abilities – a passion for invertebrates is all that’s required!

entoLIVE is delivered by the Biological Recording Company in partnership with the British Entomological & Natural History Society, Royal Entomological Society and Amateur Entomologists’ Society, with support from Buglife.

The entoLIVE programme is delivered by Biological Recording Company and receives sponsorship from the following organisations:

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

Hammersmith and Fulham Biological Recording Project

The Biological Recording Company is working in collaboration with Hammersmith and Fulham Council to deliver a series of free-to-attend biological recording events in 2026. The first of these events is a one-day Biological Recording 101 training course. This will then be followed by six Field Recorder Day events. More details about the programme – including links to sign up to the various activities – can be found below.

Training Courses

For the first event of the programme we are running another iteration of our popular Biological Recording 101 training course, a free-to-attend, introductory, full-day course which equips students with everything they need to know to start generating and submitting biological records. The course highlights the essential value of biological recording for understanding and protecting wildlife, and is perfect for newcomers to biological recording.

Biological Recording 101

09 Jun 2026 @ Queen Caroline Estate

Learn how biological recording works, how casual species observations can be converted into useful biodiversity datasets, and how to use the iRecord platform.

Register for your FREE place on Eventbrite

Coming along to Biological Recording 101 training course? Next up – put your new skills to use at one of our Field Recorder Days! You can help generate valuable biodiversity data to contribute to ongoing protection and monitoring of green spaces in Hammersmith and Fulham.

Field Recorder Days

Following on from the training, we’ll be putting our existing and newly-developed skills to good use with a series of Field Recorder Day events. Each event takes place in a different park or green space in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and each will have a specific taxonomic focus, led by a specialist. As with all of our Field Recorder Days, attendance is free, and recorders of all levels (from newcomer to seasoned pro) are welcome, but booking is mandatory as spaces are limited. Check out the different events and sign-up below!

Botany Field Recorder Day

16 Jun 2026 @ Ravenscourt Park

Join Dr Mark Spencer to record the plants found at Ravenscourt Park.

Register for your FREE place here

Beetle Field Recorder Day

22 Jul 2026 @ Hammersmith Park & Wormholt Park

Join Connor Butler to record the beetles of Hammersmith Park and Wormholt Park.

Register for your FREE place here

Bug Field Recorder Day

04 Aug 2026 @ Bishops Park

Join Tristan Bantock to record the true bugs (Hemiptera) of Bishops Park.

Register for your FREE place here

Plant Gall Field Recorder Day

26 Sep 2026 @ Margravine Cemetery

Join Tommy Root to record the plant galls of Margravine Cemetery.

Register for your FREE place here

Fungi Field Recorder Day

22 Oct 2026 @ Wormwood Scrubs

Join Dr Mark Spencer to record the fungi of Wormwood Scrubs.

Register for your FREE place here

Earthworm Sampling Day

12 Nov 2026 @ South Park & Hurlingham Park

Join Keiron Brown to collect earthworm specimens at South Park and Hurlingham Park.

Register for your FREE place here
View all upcoming Field Recorder Days here

This series of events is being delivered by the Biological Recording Company in partnership with Hammersmith and Fulham Council and the London Natural History Society (LNHS).

Project Achievements

Details of our achievements and findings coming here soon…

Biological Recording Projects

At the Biological Recording Company, we specialise in planning and delivering projects centred around recording wildlife and training naturalists.

  • London Recording Projects involve the delivery of events from our Field Recorder Day, Invertebrate Study Day, Earthworm Sampling Day and Training Course programmes. Examples include:
    • Site-based projects, such as Wild Tolworth, Ealing Beaver Project and Lesnes 500.
    • Borough-based projects, such as our Southwark and Barnet projects.
  • Earthworm Projects range from identification training and earthworm surveys to research and consultation. Example include:
    • Engagement-focused projects, such as delivering earthworm recorder training in Northern Ireland and working with farmers in the Chilterns.
    • Research-focused projects, such as looking at the impact of hay meadow restoration on earthworm communities, assessing the effectiveness of regenerative farming practices and investigating the use of AI in earthworm identification.
  • National Biological Recording Projects entail putting our expertise to use with helping other organisations improve the biological recording processes and reach new audiences.
Have a project in mind? Get in touch!

Understanding a Bee’s Buzz: Biology to Robotics

Ever wondered how and why bees buzz? Or what determines the different properties of a bee buzz? In this webinar, Charlie reveals the answer. Join us to understand bee buzzes through his work from the lab and field to understand how bees produce their buzzes and how this understanding is being used to inform the design of micro-robots for pollination.

Q&A with Dr Charlie Woodrow

Dr Charlie Woodrow is a Zoologist working at Uppsala University to understand the diversity of insects and how they work. In particular, he is interested in how insects produce and detect sounds and vibrations. This research has taken him to some of the most remote regions of the world in search of new and interesting insects and their behaviours, from hearing in crickets to how bees produce their buzzes. He combines this fieldwork with lab experiments, 3D imaging and computer models to understand the fine details of insect form and function.

1. Why can’t honey bees buzz pollinate?

Good question. It is actually estimated that only half of the world’s total bee species can buzz pollinate. Why can some do it others can’t? We don’t know! We think the answer is probably contextual; perhaps all bees could theoretically have evolved the ability to buzz pollinate, but they haven’t all needed to evolve, learn and exhibit this behaviour. That’s our best guess, but it’s an open area for research still. It’s also down to observation, maybe more bees can buzz pollinate than we know, but we haven’t observed it yet.

2. Why can’t honey bees buzz pollinate?

They’re completely spread out; buzz pollination is displayed in bees from several
disparate genera across multiple taxonomic families.

3. Are there different ‘sweet spots’ of wing position for flying versus buzz pollination?

Perhaps. In general, we know that when bees are flying their wings are fully extended and when they’re doing other non-flight behaviour their wings seem to be fully retracted. If we were to scrutinise this in further detail it’s likely we’d see variation in these wing positions which should certainly affect the types of buzz they produce, but it’s yet to be investigated and quantified.

4. What are the applications of buzzing micro-robots?

I want to make very clear that our goal with this research has never been to try and find a way to ‘replace’ real bees. We want to develop these micro-robots to
understand the different buzzes that bees produce and the functional diversity
therein. There are also some environments where artificial pollination services would be useful, for example large-scale industrial indoor greenhouses. We’re a long way off being able to fully mimic the pollination services of bees with robots, right now. Buzzing for pollen release is just the first part of the pollination role played by bees – there would also need to be a way to transport the pollen between flowers for fertilisation. Bees are obviously adept at this too, and this is a way off being paralleled by a micro-robot!

5. You mentioned that your micro-robots sometimes accidentally attracted pollen due to having a slight static charge. Do bees also utilise static electricity when foraging for pollen?

They absolutely do. We have some great high-speed video of pollen falling and
swinging round underneath a bee to attach to it. Bees are statically charged too!

6. Have you found much variation between bee species (or between individuals of the same bee species) in terms of the properties of the non-flight buzzes produced?

We haven’t found much variation so far. And that makes some sense; buzzes are
produced by a physiological mechanism which is thought to be more or less consistent across different bee species. We’re yet to observe any major structural differences in the thoracic muscles responsible for buzzing, for example. Any differences there are in the properties of the buzz between or within species seem to be determined by two things: (1) the size of the bee; and (2) the temperature. Some other factors might have a small influence, but from what we have observed so far, it’s primarily size and temperature.

7. Do bees disconnect their wings when buzz pollinating?

Not exactly, the fore-wings and hind-wings are still hooked together (bees do
this with tiny hooks called hamuli which run along the edges of the wings), just folded back.

8. Have you looked into the effects of weather on buzz pollination?

We haven’t comprehensively studied this yet, but we are kind of looking into it. At the lab at Uppsala University we have a very cool temperature-controlled chamber where we can vary parameters related to temperature and humidity and see how this affects the bees and their buzz. I highly suspect weather, particularly sun exposure and humidity, does have a strong effect on the properties of bee’s buzzes.

Charlie’s robot bee research was supported by a Human Frontier Research Grant (https://doi.org/10.52044/HFSP.RGP00432022.pc.gr.153603) awarded to Prof. Mario Vallejo Marin (Uppsala) and Prof. Noah Jafferis (UMass Lowell). Charlie’s temperature experiments are funded by a Birgitta Sintring Foundation grant awarded to Dr. Charlie Woodrow. To follow updates on these research grants, follow the Uppsala lab website (https://plant-evolution.org/wp/research/buzz-pollination/) and/or follow Charlie on Bluesky (@CharlieZoology).

Literature References

  1. Gau et al. (2023) ‘Bridging two insect flight modes in evolution, physiology and robophysics’: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06606-3.pdf 
  2. Josephson et al. (2000) ‘Asynchronous muscle: a primer’: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-abstract/203/18/2713/8551/Asynchronous-Muscle-A-Primer 
  3. Vallejo-Marín (2022) ‘How and why do bees buzz? Implications for buzz pollination’: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8866655/
  4. Ono et al. (1995) ‘Unusual thermal defence by a honeybee against mass attack by hornets’: https://www.nature.com/articles/377334a0
  5. Barron et al. (2017) ‘The evolution of honey bee dance communication: a mechanistic perspective’: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jenny-Plath/publication/321700270_The_evolution_of_honey_bee_dance_communication_A_mechanistic_perspective/links/5d51147b92851cd046b4d397/The-evolution-of-honey-bee-dance-communication-A-mechanistic-perspective.pdf 
  6. Vallejo-Marin et al. (2024) ‘Biomechanical properties of non-flight vibrations produced by bees’: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel-Montesinos-2/publication/380784575_Biomechanical_properties_of_non-flight_vibrations_produced_by_bees/links/66750cb0d21e220d89c5239c/Biomechanical-properties-of-non-flight-vibrations-produced-by-bees.pdf
  7. Alcock (1996) ‘The relation between male body size, fighting, and mating success in Dawson’s burrowing bee, Amegilla dawsoni (Apidae, Apinae, Anthophorini)’: https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1996.tb05469.x
  8. Woodrow et al. (2025) ‘Increasing temperatures affect thoracic muscle performance in Arctic bumblebees’: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65671-6.pdf
  9. Woodrow et al. (2024) ‘Buzz-pollinating bees deliver thoracic vibrations to flowers through periodic biting’: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00947-3?uuid=uuid%3A69b49095-3209-4f7e-820e-6caa3d3df334 

entoLIVE

entoLIVE webinars feature guest invertebrate researchers delving into their own invertebrate research. All events are free to attend and are suitable for adults of all abilities – a passion for invertebrates is all that’s required!

entoLIVE is delivered by the Biological Recording Company in partnership with the British Entomological & Natural History Society, Royal Entomological Society and Amateur Entomologists’ Society, with support from Buglife.

The entoLIVE programme is delivered by Biological Recording Company and receives sponsorship from the following organisations:

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

Innovative Moth Monitoring: Farmer Citizen Science Using AI

Farmland, covering 67% of England, is crucial in supporting nature recovery, yet good biodiversity data in farmland is often lacking. In this talk, Abigail presents results from a pilot involving 21 farmers across southern England who engaged in moth monitoring on their farms during 2024. Farmers used robust, portable LED light traps to capture moths weekly, and used an innovative AI-based identification app to generate real-time data. She gathered feedback from participants to understand farmer motivations, how this could be supported with effective, personalised feedback, and how the data is influenced by the accuracy of AI-based moth identification.

Q&A with Dr Abigail Lowe

Dr Abigail Lowe is an Interdisciplinary Ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Her research uses citizen science to understand the interaction of people, nature, and environmental data. Abigail’s work focuses on the use of co-design in the development of citizen science projects, ensuring that studies are designed with input from the participants involved.

1. Can you expand more on the AI identification algorithm used? What is it based on?

The image classifier contained in the e-Surveyor app uses the Nature Identification application programming interface (API) created by Naturalis Biodiversity Centre (the same identification algorithm used by the popular nature identification app ObsIdentify). We haven’t yet connected with the Dutch team behind the algorithm about this project specifically, but we are keen to. The pilot enabled us to identify commonly misidentified UK moths, and adding more training photos from specific angles or grouping species that can’t reliably be distinguished could help improve identification accuracy.

2. How did you convince farmers to get involved? Farmers famously don’t have much free time!

We aimed to engage a diverse range of farm types and attitudes towards wildlife-friendly farming, but project timelines and the need to work through an intermediary for recruitment meant we prioritised farmers who were easier to reach for this initial phase, which meant those already involved in wildlife-friendly farm clusters. Before the project, I conducted interviews to identify the reasons these farmers had expressed interest in getting involved and to find out more about how the data collected would be valuable to them. The interviews showed that farmers were primarily motivated by curiosity about the biodiversity on their land. We also carried out questionnaires following the moth monitoring. From that we identified the greatest barrier to participation was a lack of time. Within the pilot and beyond, we are working on how personalised feedback can encourage participation, beyond the intrinsic motivations some farmers already have. One great way to do this is with well-presented, eye-catching and easy-to-understand results summaries within the app. The real test will be to see whether we can successfully engage with farmers who are less intrinsically interested in nature.

3. Did you collect data on the abundance of moths, as well as which species were present?

Yes, we did. We asked farmers to take photographs of every single moth in the trap, so each photograph was treated as a single occurrence and gave a measure of abundance. But, as anyone who has every used a moth trap knows, there is a caveat to this: sometimes (indeed, arguably often) you are not able to get a photograph of every individual moth in a moth trap; some moths may fly away when you open the trap, others you might miss when searching through it. Extra frustratingly, such especially flighty or especially well-camouflaged moths are a non-random sample of UK moth species. In other words, some moths are more likely to be lost or missed than others. That doesn’t necessarily invalidate all the abundance data, but it’s a caveat to bear in mind.

4.  Are the moth records generated openly accessible for others to see? I.e. have they shared with databases such as iRecord or the NBN Atlas?

Not yet, but hopefully soon – yes! The County Moth Recorders in the counties where we conducted this pilot study are aware of this project through engagement with Butterfly Conservation (BC) and will be receiving the verified data directly in due course. Furthermore, and more ultimately, we hope to establish a data flow pathway so that this data can transfer through to iRecord where it will be openly available and can go on to UK databases such as the NBN Atlas. However, as AI-generated identifications are relatively new for the verifier community, we are approaching this carefully and engaging with County Moth Recorders via BC to explore their attitudes towards engaging with these data.

5. Did you have any concerns from farmers about finding rare or notable species on their land?

Although a few farmers were initially worried that finding a rare moth on their land might lead to new restrictions or attract crowds of keen recorders, these concerns eased as the project progressed. In reality, moths don’t generate excitement on the same level as rare or migrant birds, especially as they are unpredictable from night to night, and we weren’t sharing records in real time. We were also confident that farmers would not catch any moth species with statutory protections that would affect farm management. With those worries set aside, we actually started observing the opposite phenomenon; farmers started becoming competitive with one another to see whose farm hosted the most exciting moths. One farmer was lucky enough to catch a nationally scarce Scarce Forester (Jordanita globulariae) and was both very proud of the fact and very happy for that information to be shared!

Literature References

  1. Staley et al. (2024) ‘Evaluating the current state and potential of citizen science involving farmers’: https://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/4635559178534912
  2. Peter et al. (2019) ‘Participant outcomes of biodiversity citizen science projects: A systematic literature review’: https://doi.org/10.3390/su11102780 
  3. van der Wal et al. (2016) ‘The role of automated feedback in training and retaining biological recorders for citizen science’: https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12705 

Further Info

entoLIVE

entoLIVE webinars feature guest invertebrate researchers delving into their own invertebrate research. All events are free to attend and are suitable for adults of all abilities – a passion for invertebrates is all that’s required!

entoLIVE is delivered by the Biological Recording Company in partnership with the British Entomological & Natural History Society, Royal Entomological Society and Amateur Entomologists’ Society, with support from Buglife.

The entoLIVE programme is delivered by Biological Recording Company and receives sponsorship from the following organisations:

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

Barnet Natural History Training

The Biological Recording Company is working with a range of organisations, including Barnet Council and Citizen Zoo, to deliver a programme of free natural history training courses and biological recording events throughout 2025 and 2026, including:

  • In-person natural history training courses across sites in Barnet.
  • Online ecology and biodiversity courses that can be completed at your own pace.
  • Field Recorder Day events to record the wildlife of the Welsh Harp under the guidance of biodiversity specialists.

More details about the programme, including links to the booking pages for the various activities, can be found below.

In-person Training Courses

Seven one-day natural history training courses are scheduled at sites within the London Borough of Barnet, with subjects aimed at those new to biological recording and an emphasis on developing biological recording skills in Barnet residents and greenspace volunteers.

The full training programme is listed below. All courses are free, but spaces are limited, so we recommend booking early to avoid disappointment.

Check out the listings on Eventbrite

Biological Recording 101 took place at Hendon Town Hall on 3 June 2025, taught by Keiron Brown and attended by 16 participants. The course highlighted the value of biological recording for understanding and protecting wildlife. Attendees learned to collect and submit species data via iRecord and manage records to support local biodiversity monitoring.

Teaching Natural History took place at Barnet Environment Centre on 8 January 2026, taught by Keiron Brown and attended by 9 participants. Attendees learnt how to confidently teach adults through engaging classroom and field-based learning, and gained practical tools to design, deliver, and evaluate effective natural history education.

Fungi For Beginners took place at Hendon Town Hall on 15 January 2026, taught by Mark Spencer and attended by 14 participants. Attendees were introduced to the fascinating world of British fungi and learnt the basics of finding and identifying them through classroom learning and guided fieldwork. Participants gained foundational skills in fungal biology, taxonomy, and safe field practice.

Winter Tree Identification took place at Barnet Environment Centre on 28 January 2026, taught by Henry Miller and attended by 14 participants. Attendees learnt how to identify broadleaved trees in winter using buds, twigs, bark, and seasonal features, and gained confidence through practical exercises and guided fieldwork.

Botany For Beginners

03 Feb 2026 @ Hendon Town Hall

Discover British plants and gain practical skills in identifying them, recognising key structures, and understanding their taxonomy and ecology.

Camera Trapping Mammals

18 Feb 2026 @ Freehold Community Centre

Master camera trapping to monitor British mammals and classify footage using MammalWeb. Gain hands-on experience setting up cameras, identifying species, and managing data.

Terrestrial Invertebrates for Beginners

26 Mar 2026 @ Golders Green Quaker Meeting House

Explore British terrestrial invertebrates and develop core skills in finding and identifying them through guided fieldwork. Gain confidence using identification keys and recognising key features.

Book your space while availability lasts!

Online Training Courses

Barnet residents and volunteers can access any of our entoLEARN or Skills For Ecology online courses for free. We have 200 spaces to give away so get in touch with Harriet at Barnet Council for instructions on how to claim your free courses. A full list of eligible courses is provided below.

See the full online natural history course programme

entoLEARN online courses

  • Bumblebees of the UK
  • Chafers of the UK
  • Damselflies of the UK
  • Dragonflies of the UK
  • Earthworms of the UK and Ireland
  • Freshwater Leeches of the UK
  • Harvestmen of the UK
  • Longhorn Beetles of the UK
  • Social Wasps of the UK

Skills For Ecology online courses

  • Camera Traps
  • Crayfish Surveys and Conservation
  • Drone Surveys for Ecology
  • Ferns of the UK
  • Flower-Insect Timed (FIT) Counts
  • Hay Meadow Restoration
  • Identifying Mosses
  • Introduction to Camera Trapping
  • Invasive Plants in the UK
  • Surveying For Beetles
  • Surveying For Dragonflies
  • Surveying For Pollinators
  • Wildlife Detection Dogs

Instructions for claiming courses funded by Barnet Council

  1. Navigate to the relevant product on the Biological Recording Company online learning platform: https://courses.biologicalrecording.co.uk/collections/products
  2. Click on the button ‘Buy £X‘ to bring up the basket page.
  3. Click on the text stating ‘Have a coupon?‘ to bring up the coupon box
  4. Enter the code provided by Barnet Council into the coupon box and click ‘Apply‘ to reduce the cost to £0. Barnet residents and volunteers should contact Harriet at Barnet Council to request a code.
  5. Enter your email address, first name and last name to complete the purchase and set up your account.

Field Recorder Days

Following on from the training, we’ll be putting our existing and newly-developed skills to good use at the Welsh Harp Open Space with a series of Field Recorder Day events. Each event is led by a species group specialist and will have a specific taxonomic focus. Join us to help record the wildlife of the Welsh Harp.

  • Earthworm Sampling Day 01 Apr 2026 at Welsh Harp (Barnet)
  • Invertebrate Field Recorder Day 21 Apr 2026 at Welsh Harp (Barnet)
  • Botany Field Recorder Day 24 Jun 2026 at Welsh Harp (Barnet)
  • Plant Gall Field Recorder Day 19 Sep 2026 at Welsh Harp (Barnet)
  • Fungi Field Recorder Day 15 Oct 2026 at Welsh Harp (Barnet)
Book on our Field Recorder Days here

This series of training events in Barnet is being run as a collaboration between the Biological Recording Company and Barnet Council.

Project Achievements

Details of our achievements and findings coming here soon…

Biological Recording Projects

At the Biological Recording Company, we specialise in planning and delivering projects centred around recording wildlife and training naturalists.

  • London Recording Projects involve the delivery of events from our Field Recorder Day, Invertebrate Study Day, Earthworm Sampling Day and Training Course programmes. Examples include:
    • Site-based projects, such as Wild Tolworth, Ealing Beaver Project and Lesnes 500.
    • Borough-based projects, such as our Southwark and Barnet projects.
  • Earthworm Projects range from identification training and earthworm surveys to research and consultation. Example include:
    • Engagement-focused projects, such as delivering earthworm recorder training in Northern Ireland and working with farmers in the Chilterns.
    • Research-focused projects, such as looking at the impact of hay meadow restoration on earthworm communities, assessing the effectiveness of regenerative farming practices and investigating the use of AI in earthworm identification.
  • National Biological Recording Projects entail putting our expertise to use with helping other organisations improve the biological recording processes and reach new audiences.
Have a project in mind? Get in touch!

Plastic Pollution and Reef Manta Rays: Sources and Exposure

Plastic pollution is ubiquitous and increasing in the marine environment, particularly in remote locations. The effects on marine life include entanglement, ingestion, and potential leaching of toxic plastic additives into tissues. A study investigated the exposure of reef manta rays to plastic pollution in a remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean, including abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear, and microplastics. Additionally, it examined the origins of plastic drink bottles on the beaches of the Chagos Archipelago to understand the origins of the debris, and make Extended Producer Responsibility recommendations in the Global Plastics Treaty currently being negotiated by the United Nations.

Q&A with Dr Jessica Savage

Dr Jessica Savage is a recent PhD graduate from the London NERC Doctoral Training Programme, based at Royal Holloway University of London and the Institute of Zoology (Zoological Society of London). Her research interests include the exposure of species to plastic pollution using suitable habitat modelling, empirical plastic sampling, and brand audits of debris to understand their origins. She also enjoys science communication and public engagement with audiences ranging from school students to policymakers.

1. You mentioned that the main microplastic fibres you collected were black and blue. What is the significance of this? Does it tell us anything about the source of the pollution?

Microplastics are notoriously difficult to apportion sources to. It’s effectively complex detective work, and we can never say for sure where a given fibre has come from. That caveat aside, the black and blue fibres generally point towards clothes washing as a source. These fibres enter the ocean from domestic washing machine wastewater outputs via rivers. Blue fibres have also recently been shown to be linked to fishing activity, specifically the fraying of plastic ropes and other similar equipment.

2. Are there any initiatives conducting analyses of dead manta rays to identify the plastic pollution in their tissues?

I considered doing this as part of my PhD research, but unfortunately it’s quite logistically difficult. For a start, Reef Manta Rays are a protected species (their status has recently been upgraded on CITES, actually), so it’s very difficult to get permission to do analysis looking at tissue or stomach content analysis. You would probably need to rely on bycatch from fishing vessels, or potentially opportunistic sampling of dead, washed-up rays. I know there’s been similar research on plastic contamination in tissues of deceased beached Whale Sharks, for example. But it’s very difficult to get access to carcasses, not to mention the fact that they rarely wash up in the first place. Some alternative options are to study microplastic pollution in egested materials (vomit and faeces) or to do biopsies (studying samples of tissue from live animals). These methods have been used to study plastic contamination in other elasmobranchs (e.g. Whale Sharks) but haven’t yet been applied to Reef Manta Rays.

3. Are Reef Manta Rays threatened by swallowing macroplastics (e.g. plastic bags, flip flops, plastic water bottles)?

In theory, they could be, yes. The way Reef Manta Rays feed is by opening their mouths and hoovering up plankton as they swim through the ocean. If there was a piece of plastic in the water column, it could definitely end up being swallowed and blocking the ray’s digestive tract. However, I don’t think this has been observed happening so far. It has definitely been observed in Whale Sharks though, so it’s possible it could affect rays.

4. You mentioned in the talk that much of the plastic pollution in the ocean comes from ships, rather than land. Is anything being done to regulate how ships use and dispose of plastic waste?

There is an international law called MARPOL Annex V which criminalises the disposal of plastic waste at sea. Unfortunately, it is not always adhered to, as my research makes clear. What’s particularly interesting to me is that sometimes we find plastic waste that has clearly been through a ship’s waste processing facility (e.g. plastic bottles that are compressed and condensed) but which has nevertheless ended up in the ocean! The behaviour and motivations behind the disposal of waste at sea has been studied by a few researchers. One key driving factor identified is the fact that ships usually have to pay to dispose of their waste at ports, hence companies may instead choose to dispose of the waste at sea where nobody will see them do it. Out of sight out of mind, so to speak. I believe what is needed to counteract this is to establish incentives for shipping companies to retain their waste until they reach appropriate disposal facilities on land. There are people working on this currently.

5. What role does tourism play in driving plastic pollution in the Indian Ocean?

This is a really important point, and the reason why I mentioned in the talk (and also in my paper) that there is more nuance to the question of attributing ‘blame’ than simply pointing the finger at certain countries. Tourism is a huge part of the problem of plastic pollution in the Indian Ocean. This is particularly true in places like the Maldives where the economy relies almost wholly on tourism. Another factor which is important to bear in mind is waste trade. The Global North exports much of its waste to the developing world, particularly to countries in Southeast Asia. Historically China was the global waste processing hub, but recently they have has halted all waste import. In its place, other countries, particularly Malaysia and Indonesia, have taken up the mantle. These countries do not necessarily have the facilities required to properly handle all this plastic waste, and some is clearly leaching into the environment. This represents another source. We have to be very careful when apportioning the blame for the global plastic pollution problem.

6. What advice would you give to people living in the UK/Europe to help reduce marine plastic pollution?

In your own life, within the boundaries of your own means and time and capabilities, try and move away from single-use plastic. Where possible, start buying second hand items, particularly clothes. If you live on the coast, find a local beach-cleaning group and help out, even if it’s just once a month. In your local area, write to your local politicians and raise how important of an issue you think it is that the UK has a strong position on the Global Plastics Treaty. Get involved in any local activism you can!

Literature References

  1. Strike et al. (2022) ‘Sublethal Injuries and Physical Abnormalities in Maldives Manta Rays, Mobula alfredi and Mobula birostris’: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.773897/full 
  2. Savage et al. (2025) ‘No escape from microplastics: Contamination of reef manta ray feeding areas in a remote, protected archipelago’: https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/csp2.70059
  3. Savage et al. (2024) ‘Big brands impact small islands: Sources of plastic pollution in a remote and protected archipelago’: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X24004533?via%3Dihub
  4. Hays et al. (2020) ‘A review of a decade of lessons from one of the world’s largest MPAs: conservation gains and key challenges’: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-020-03776-w
  5. Thompson et al. (2024) ‘Twenty years of microplastic pollution research—what have we learned?’: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl2746
  6. Harris et al. (2024) ‘Spatiotemporal variations in reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) residency at a remote meso-scale habitat and its importance in future spatial planning’: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.4089
  7. Duncan et al. (2020) ‘Message in a bottle: Open source technology to track the movement of plastic pollution’: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242459&utm_keyword=referral_inverse

Further Info

marineLIVE

marineLIVE webinars feature guest marine biologists talking about their research into the various organisms that inhabit our seas and oceans, and the threats that they face. All events are free to attend and are suitable for adults of all abilities – a passion for marine life is all that’s required!

marineLIVE is delivered by the Biological Recording Company with funding from the British Ecological Society.

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

The Key to the Queendom: Driver Ants as Keystone Species in Tropical Africa

Driver ants form some of the most impressive colonies of any animal on Earth, up to 20 million strong. They form vast raids to capture their prey but surprisingly little is known about them. This talk explores what we know about driver ants and what we’re beginning to learn about this amazing group of social insects using cutting-edge modern tools.

Q&A with Dr Max Tercel

Max Tercel is a scientist studying the ecology of ants. He is interested in how ants affect the world around them and uses time-tested entomological techniques as well as newer cutting-edge molecular methods, such as DNA metabarcoding, in his research.

1. Do the two species of Dorylus in tropical Africa predate each other?

No, as soon as they see each other they immediately go in opposite directions. This is also true of encounters between different colonies of the same species. This behaviour makes sense. On a chance encounter between representatives of two colonies, each individual has no way of knowing how big the other’s colony is. It could be huge! The risk to reward ratio of interacting with the other species is heavily weighted towards risk. driver ants are ferocious – they are certainly not easy prey. It therefore makes sense for them to have evolved to steer totally clear of one another. Whilst much remains unknown about these ants, one of the things that we do know is that driver ant movement ecology is heavily determined by proximity to the nearest neighbouring colony.

2. What castes exist within Driver Ant colonies, and do these castes play different roles within raids?

Driver ant workers come in two or three distinct ‘morphs’ in terms of size. In other words, most workers tend to fall into one of two/three general size categories. There are also intermediate individuals who fall between these size classes, however. The largest workers are called supermajors. They have giant heads with large piercing mandibles, evolved for defence, and position themselves along the margins of a raiding party column, so protecting the other ants. The smallest workers – so-called minor workers – look more conventionally ant-like, with smaller heads and cutting mandibles. They can be found at the front of an advancing raid party, squeezing in amongst small gaps in the leaf litter and rooting any other animals out.

3. You mentioned there are other animals – e.g. beetles, flies, springtails, birds – associated with driver ant colonies. How come the driver ants leave these species alone, when they so ferociously attack everything else?

This is a really interesting question. And funnily enough, it is something we are already planning to investigate during the 2026 field season, using behavioural experiments. As a general rule, from my personal experience, it seems that most of the driver ant associates pass amongst the colony ‘without trace’. They are effectively invisible. This is just my personal observation though. The question is yet to be empirically researched. It will be exciting to see what we find next year – watch this space!

4. How do you manage to protect yourself from the ants whilst studying them!?

You get bitten all the time! Even if you avoid the actual raids, there are always driver ants in the leaf litter samples we collect, and they have a real knack for scurrying out of the sample and onto your body and giving you a nip. I do have a boiler suit that I wear sometimes, but this is only bearable when it’s a relatively mild day in the forest. More often I just take five minutes every now and then to pick the ants off myself after a round of sampling. It’s part of the job.

5. Last week we had an entoLIVE talk from Professor Elva Robinson focused on the Shining Guest Ant. This is a species which lives within the nest of much larger wood ants. Are there any ants with similar lifestyles living within Driver Ant colonies?

I highly suspect so. Again, no formal research here yet, but I think we’ve found at least one species – in the genus Pheidole – which seems highly associated with driver ant refuse piles. I’ve also seen them often around the edges of raid columns and sometimes also near on or the nests. It is also possible there are commensal ants within the driver ant nests, but I’ve not had a chance to see inside one.

6. Do driver ants always raid along the same routes?

This is one of the central questions being addressed by my research team. Generally, we think that driver ants tend not to raid in the same place multiple times, but they do sometimes. I have seen driver ants raid the same place three times in a week before, but this is a rarity. More often they tend to explore semi-randomly in all directions from the nest. We do not know what influences the decision to choose a particular direction and route to raid. Many of our assumptions of the biology and ecology of driver ants are based on understanding of similar army ants in South America. In these South American ants, it is known that the colonies raid in a highly ordered and efficient – almost mathematical – pattern. Driver ants seem to be more random.

Literature References

  1. Savage (1847) ‘I. On the habits of the “drivers” or visiting ants of West Africa’: https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2311.1847.tb01686.x
  2. Gotwald Jr (1978) ‘Trophic ecology and adaptation in tropical old world ants of the subfamily Dorylinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)’: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2387902 
  3. Mody et al. (2003) ‘Determinants of small-scale mosaics of arthropod communities in natural and anthropogenically disturbed habitats’: https://www.bgbm.org/BioDivInf/Biolog/Statusseminar1/StatusReport202001.pdf#page=136 
  4. Schöning et al. (2005) ‘Temporal and spatial patterns in the emigrations of the army ant Dorylus (Anomma) molestus in the montane forest of Mt Kenya’: https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0307-6946.2005.00720.x 
  5. Schöning et al. (2007) ‘Prey spectra of two swarm-raiding army ant species in East Africa’: https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-7998.2007.00360.x 
  6. Peters et al. (2011) ‘Deforestation and the population decline of the army ant Dorylus wilverthi in western Kenya over the last century’: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.01959.x
  7. Van Huis et al. (2021) ‘Cultural aspects of ants, bees and wasps, and their products in sub-Saharan Africa’: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42690-020-00410-6.pdf
  8. Gotwald (1995) ‘Army Ants: The Biology of Social Predation’
  9. Kronaeur (2020) ‘Army Ants: Nature’s Ultimate Social Hunters’

entoLIVE

entoLIVE webinars feature guest invertebrate researchers delving into their own invertebrate research. All events are free to attend and are suitable for adults of all abilities – a passion for invertebrates is all that’s required!

entoLIVE is delivered by the Biological Recording Company in partnership with the British Entomological & Natural History Society, Royal Entomological Society and Amateur Entomologists’ Society, with support from Buglife.

The entoLIVE programme is delivered by Biological Recording Company and receives sponsorship from the following organisations:

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

The Shining Guest Ant: An Unexpected Houseguest

The Shining Guest Ant (Formicoxenus nitidulus) is a tiny and elusive ant that lives as an uninvited but harmless ‘guest’ in the nests of much larger Wood Ants (Formica rufa group). For a new Shining Guest Ant queen, establishing a colony is a challenging task. To avoid the inbreeding risk of saying local, she must disperse and not only find the right woodland habitat, but also locate a suitable new host nest. Because of their secretive nature and small size, these ants are underrecorded and their movements are poorly understood. In this talk, Elva shares new, surprising research about Shining Guest Ant queens’ ability to find new homes, and will provide tips on how to spot these elusive creatures on your next walk in the woods.

Q&A with Professor Elva Robinson

Elva Robinson is a Professor in Ecology at the University of York. She studies the organisation of social animal groups using ants as her model system, and is especially interested in the interactions between social behaviour and environmental change.

1. Why do Shining Guest Ants only live in Wood Ant nests?

Wood Ants bring in a huge amount of food from the surrounding environment into their nests, to the extent that each nest acts as a sort of ‘nutrient hotspot’ in the landscape. Many other species have evolved to take advantage of this high-density food hotspot through eating the ‘scraps’ left behind by the Wood Ants. The Shining Guest Ant is one such example, and there are many others. Wood Ants are unique in their ability to provide this sort of environment; it is unparalleled even by other nest-building ants (e.g. Yellow Meadow Ants). In addition to food, Wood Ant nests also provide the Shining Guest Ant colony with suitable nesting conditions. The nests are made of a ‘thatch’ of fragmented leaf litter, which contains hollow twigs and grass stems which are required for the Shining Guest Ant colony, and provide a level of physical protection absent elsewhere in the landscape.

2. What percentage of Wood Ant nests contain Shining Guest Ant colonies?

It’s certainly not all of them! Beyond that, though, the answer seems to vary considerably between locations. In one of my study sites in the North York Moors, I found that over 80% of Wood Ant nests contained Shining Guest Ant colonies. At a different study site in Derbyshire, fewer than 10% of nests have Shining Guest Ants within them. It would be fascinating to understand why Shining Guest Ants are so prevalent at some sites but not others. For now, we have very little idea! More research is needed – and you can help! If you want to record wood ant nests and their guests, you can contribute to our Europe-wide Citizen Science project – MonitAnt.

3. You explained in the talk that one Wood Ant nest can support multiple Shining Guest Ant colonies. We also know that many ant species are highly territorial and aggressive. Is there ever any aggression between Shining Guest Ant colonies within a shared Wood Ant nest?

I’ve never observed inter-colony aggression, personally, but I would expect that there would be some. The most closely related species to Shining Guest Ants we have in the UK are ants in the genera Temnothorax and Leptothorax. Species in those genera are known to be highly aggressive towards workers from other colonies – often fighting each other to the death. I therefore think it’s likely that Shining Guest Ant colonies also fight each another. On the other hand, a Wood Ant nest is very big compared to the size of a Shining Guest Ant colony. Considering each Wood Ant nest might, at most, only contain a handful of Shining Guest Ant colonies, they can probably avoid each other for the most part by having their own territorial ‘patches’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s really hard to study what happens inside a Wood Ant nest, so again we aren’t yet sure of what exactly goes on!

4. Do Shining Guest Ants have a preference for certain plant materials for nesting?

My personal experience suggests they are quite flexible. Even at sites where the occupancy rate of Shining Guest Ants within Wood Ant nests is low, there is considerable variation between Wood Ant nests in terms of the thatch material used by Shining Guest Ants for nesting. I am personally yet to see a strong relationship between occupancy and plant material available. Yet again, though, we do not really have strong enough data to make a confident statement here. More research needed!

5. Does anything eat, predate or parasitise Shining Guest Ants?

This is another really interesting question, and yet again, I have to answer that we do not really know! One particular area of interest would be fungal parasites. We know there are several species of pathogenic fungi specialised on Wood Ants. It would be fascinating to see whether Shining Guest Ants also carry these. In the eventuality that Shining Guest Ants somehow do not pick the pathogens up from the Wood Ants, I’d love to know what exactly they’re doing to prevent this transmission!

Literature References

  1. Robinson et al. (2025) ‘Insights into the population genetics of an extreme habitat specialist, the wood ant commensal Formicoxenus nitidulus’: https://pure.york.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/insights-into-the-population-genetics-of-an-extreme-habitat-speci/
  2. Martin et al. (2007) ‘Chemical deterrent enables a socially parasitic ant to invade multiple hosts’: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2279212/pdf/rspb20070795.pdf

Further Info

entoLIVE

entoLIVE webinars feature guest invertebrate researchers delving into their own invertebrate research. All events are free to attend and are suitable for adults of all abilities – a passion for invertebrates is all that’s required!

entoLIVE is delivered by the Biological Recording Company in partnership with the British Entomological & Natural History Society, Royal Entomological Society and Amateur Entomologists’ Society, with support from Buglife.

The entoLIVE programme is delivered by Biological Recording Company and receives sponsorship from the following organisations:

Learn more about British wildlife

Check out our events on Eventbrite

The Fungus Verification Consultation Project

The Biological Recording Company is collaborating with the British Mycological Society (BMS) to assess how fungal records submitted to The Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI) are verified and shared going forward. We will be consulting widely with fungus recorders via an open-to-all online survey, followed by a consultation workshop with BMS members. Following this, we plan to publish our findings in a consultation report and draft a verification protocol for verifying FRDBI records.

A bit of background

In September 2025, the NECR650 Edition 1: Data Flows of UK Fungal Data Records, commissioned by Natural England and produced by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), was published. This report examines how fungal records are currently collected, verified, stored, and shared across the UK. The report’s function is to clarify how fungal data flows between recorders, databases, and users to improve access, quality, and conservation outcomes.

Key findings included:

  • Complex Data Landscape: Fungal data collection involves two national recording schemes (British Mycological Society – BMS, and Fungus Conservation Trust – FCT), local fungus groups, environmental records centres, and online platforms (e.g. iRecord, iNaturalist, Observation.org). This fragmented landscape causes duplication, inconsistent verification, and restricted sharing.
  • Identification of Major Data Sources:
    • BMS – Fungal Records Database of Britain and Ireland (FRDBI): The largest dataset but not fully open access nor verified.
    • FCT – CATE2 Database: Contains substantial data, but recorder and geographic fields are restricted for public or cross-database use.
    • National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Atlas and GBIF: Provide national and international data access but contain limited fungi records due to sharing restrictions.
    • Local and Online Sources: Local fungus groups and online citizen science platforms contribute valuable data but vary in quality and verification standards.
  • Verification Challenges: Fungal identification is complex, requiring expert review. Current verification systems vary across databases, leading to uneven data quality and confidence levels.
  • Data Sharing Barriers: Closed databases, inconsistent licensing, and differing standards limit access for conservation, Red List assessments, and ecological research.
  • Stakeholder Insights: Surveys of recorders and database managers revealed concerns about data fragmentation, complexity of submission processes, and insufficient collaboration between recorders, data managers, and end users.

To improve fungal data management and conservation outcomes, the report recommends:

  1. Adopting FAIR Data Principles – ensuring data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
  2. Standardising Verification Protocols – establishing shared quality assurance processes.
  3. Enhancing Accessibility – expanding data sharing to national repositories such as NBN Atlas and GBIF.
  4. Improving Interoperability – aligning taxonomies and metadata standards across systems.
  5. Encouraging Data Use in Conservation and Research – supporting Red List assessments, land management, and ecological monitoring.
  6. Supporting Recorders – through training, technical tools, and national coordination.

The full report can be found here: https://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/6376073955377152

Fungus Recorder Online Survey

The first stage of the project is the Fungus Recorder Online Survey, now open to recorders nationwide. This short survey invites participants to share their experiences with fungi recording, from the platforms they use to their thoughts on data quality and verification. We want to understand what motivates recorders, the challenges they face, and their views on how verification should work. Your input will help build a clear picture of current practices across the UK and directly inform the development of the Draft BMS Verification Protocol. Take the survey here.

The survey should take roughly 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Responses are welcome from all fungus recorders, regardless of how many records one submits and where one submits their records to.

Questions centre around:

  • The platform(s) used to submit or manage fungal records
  • How often recorders submit records
  • What verification steps recorders see as appropriate (e.g. is expert review needed?)
  • Which organisations should be able to access records
  • The use of tools such as automated rules and AI

These questions are designed to help us build a clear picture of current practices and preferences in the fungi recording community.

Take the Fungus Recorder Online Survey

BMS Consultation Workshop

The conversation continues in person at the BMS Consultation Workshop, which will take place at Kew Gardens on Saturday 29th November 2025 as part of the BMS Annual Meeting. This half-day workshop will bring recorders and verifiers together to explore key topics such as data flow, validation and verification, verification statuses, and communication between recorders. The session will combine presentations with interactive group activities, encouraging open discussion and collaborative thinking. The insights gathered will form the foundation for refining and testing ideas within the draft verification protocol.

Fungus Recording and Verification Consultation Report

Once the survey and workshop are complete, we will produce the Fungus Recording and Verification Consultation Report. This report will summarise the feedback, findings, and recommendations collected throughout the project. It will highlight key themes raised by participants and provide a transparent overview of how their input has informed the development of the Draft BMS Verification Protocol. Everyone who contributes to the consultation will receive access to the published report, ensuring that the process remains open, inclusive, and collaborative.

Draft BMS Verification Protocol

The final output of the project will be the Draft BMS Verification Protocol: a concise, two-page document outlining proposed standards and processes for the verification of fungal records in the UK. It will include a summary of next steps and a visual data flow diagram showing how fungal biological records are managed within the BMS framework. The protocol will serve as a working draft for further discussion and refinement, moving the recording community forward towards a shared and consistent approach to fungi verification.

Take the Fungus Recorder Online Survey