Local Wildlife Sites Virtual Symposium

Not all sites that are important for nature and wildlife are protected through nationally designated legal protections, such as Sites of Scientific interest (SSSI), National Nature Reserves (NNR) or National Parks. Local Wildlife Sites are selected locally and allow partnerships of government and non-government organisations to identify wildlife-rich sites that are of importance locally, regionally and nationally.

Local Wildlife Sites include many different habitat types and are home to some of our rare and threatened species. Site ownership can be public or private, and the number of sites and area covered within a region is often much greater than designated as SSSI. This volume and variety of sites coupled with the fact that, as a non-statutory designation, the only protection for these sites comes via the planning system can make designating, managing and protecting Local Wildlife Sites extremely challenging for those involved.

The Local Wildlife Sites Virtual Symposium will enable conservationists to share their experiences and case studies for tackling some of the issues that the environmental sector faces when it comes to managing Local Wildlife Sites.

There are variations both nationally and locally regarding the terminology used for the “Local Wildlife Site” designation, including Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), Local Nature Conservation site and County Wildlife Site.

The Local Wildlife Sites Virtual Symposium enabled conservationists to share their experiences and case studies for tackling some of the issues that the environmental sector faces when it comes to managing Local Wildlife Sites.

Can Community Science Support a County Wildlife Sites Framework in Devon?

Jess Smallcombe (Devon Biodiversity Records Centre)

Devon Biodiversity Record Centre undertake the monitoring of County Wildlife Sites in Devon. As well as traditional professional surveys, we have been trialling a new approach to monitoring, involving local community groups. Here we discuss our experiences, including the benefits and challenges of taking this approach.

Read the full blog with Q&A and links here

Rising From The Ashes: A Local Wildlife Sites and Development Case Study from Essex

Jon Cranfield, Herpetologic Ltd

A case study looking at a development scheme which destroyed most of a Local Wildlife Site in Basildon, Essex. The scheme involved external habitat compensation and creation on external ex-farmland north of the scheme which provided receptor sites for protected species and opportunities for “biodiversity net gain” via the establishment of a larger Local Wildlife Site (designated in 2022) which is being managed for the foreseeable future beyond 2035 on a 99-year lease.

Read the full blog with Q&A and links here

Digital Assets for Local Wildlife Sites

Dr Dan Carpenter, Digital Ecology

Local Environmental Record Centres are one of the main custodians of Local Wildlife Site data often managing complex data for thousands of sites. In this talk, Dan will share a digital system created by Digital Ecology to automate the creation of key outputs shared by NEYEDC (North and East Yorkshire Ecological Data Centre) with their customers. He will also explain the importance of LWS in the planning system and the role of these outputs in helping to protect and manage sites.

Read the full blog with Q&A and links here

London’s Wildlife Sites: Challenges and Opportunities in a Growing City

Mathew Frith, London Wildlife Trust

The criteria to identify Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs) in London and the policies to best protect and enhance them have been in place for over 35 years. There are now 1660 of them covering c19% of the area of Greater London, but they face challenges from a growing London (with a projected population of 10 million by 2030). This looks at the SINCs origins, how they have fared to help conserve habitats and species, and how they might prove to serve critical purposes for the (re)wilding of the city and its climate change resilience.

Read the full blog with Q&A and links here

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Invertebrate Sentience: Do Invertebrate Experiences Deserve Respect & Welfare Protection?

To be sentient is to have positive or negative experiences, such as experiences of pain, pleasure, comfort, warmth, hunger, anxiety or joy. Humans are sentient, but are we alone? In the UK, a new law requires all policymakers to have due regard for animal sentience. This law has given new urgency to the question: which other animals are sentient? Might some invertebrates, such as octopuses, crabs, snails, or even insects, have experiences that deserve respect and welfare protection? Prof Jonathan Birch played a key role in amending the new legislation to include octopuses, crabs and lobsters. Here he talks about the evidence for invertebrate sentience.

Q&A with Prof Jonathan Birch

Jonathan Birch is a Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and Principal Investigator (PI) on the Foundations of Animal Sentience project. In 2021, he led a “Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans” that led to invertebrate animals including octopuses, crabs and lobsters being included in the UK government’s Sentience Bill. In addition to his interest in animal sentience, cognition and welfare, he also has a longstanding interest in the evolution of altruism and social behaviour. His first book, The Philosophy of Social Evolution, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017.

  • Do octopuses have more than one brain?
    People wonder a lot about octopuses because they have a substantial amount of the nervous tissue in their arms and then they have ganglia at the top of the arms that are linked, as well as the central brain. There is then a question about if each of those arms has subjective experiences of their own. However, other octopus experts will argue that the central brain is still in control, so we don’t have as detailed a picture as we’d like about how autonomous each of the arms is.
  • Can we study sentience in a way that doesn’t focus on human experience to versions of sentience that don’t exist in humans?
    We have to be open to the likelihood that animals may have sensory experiences that do not exist in humans – that we wouldn’t even have words for as we don’t experience them. This is particularly true of animals that have sensory abilities that we don’t have, for example, animals that have electroreception. What does that feel like? We don’t have words for that and the language that we have for talking about sentience is incredibly anthropocentric and limited so we do need to find frameworks for including this. However, for communicating with policymakers terms like pain are quite useful for conveying the urgency and importance of what we are talking about.
  • Are there ways other than inducing pain to study sentience?
    I would love to see the field of animal sentience move away from pain and no longer focus on such an extent to it. I’d like to see more of a focus on the positive side of sentience. The issue is that there is a lack of rigorous ways to study states like joy and pleasure. There was a really interesting study that came out recently on play behaviour in bumblebees involving ball rolling in their environment, and it showed that they will roll balls when there is no reward associated with the behaviour and they will roll them just for the sake of rolling balls. Hopefully, these kinds of studies will lead to more similar studies focusing on the positive side of mental life as well as the negative.
  • How are the ethics of experiments using pain monitored?
    Where animals are protected there are measures in place. This just includes vertebrates and cephalopods as the law has not been amended to protect decapods or insects. For those that are protected, there is a framework that is based on the 3 R’s: replace, reduce, refine. Scientists have to get their work approved by an animal welfare review board and justify that they have really tried to minimise the number of animals involved, minimise the painfulness of the stimuli involved and replace animals wherever possible. Sadly animal research does still involve inflicting pain.
  • Are the experimental methods used suitable for invertebrates, such as insects, suitable for testing sentience when they experience the world differently?
    We’ve used experimental techniques used for mammals and where we’ve shown that invertebrates display the same behaviours we are able to take them as evidence of pain. The flip side of that is that if we’d conducted these experiments and invertebrates had not displayed these behaviours, does that mean that they don’t experience pain or simply that we’ve looked for it in the wrong way and we need to find ways of testing their behaviour that fits with their way of life?
  • Are the human medications working the same way in invertebrates as they do in humans?
    To me, it was amazing that it works at all! With octopuses, they have good effectiveness with a topical local anaesthetic (lidocaine) that goes on the skin and suppresses the first part of the pain pathway. It really seems to work right across the animal kingdom. It’s much more difficult to get painkillers that would be consumed and act on the brain and still work. With mammals the standard painkiller is opioids and these don’t appear to work on invertebrates.
  • What are your thoughts on octopus farming?
    Our report recommends against it as there will be animal welfare issues. It looks like it will happen in other countries so we need to think about if the UK should have measures to stop the import of octopus products coming from these farms.
  • Will a simar report to the decapod and cephalopod report be produced to assess insect sentience?
    The government has not commissioned such a report on insects. However, the review that we have conducted has been published and is available for researchers and policymakers. There are a lot of evidence gaps but there is also evidence, and where we have studied an insect group more closely (such as bees or fruit flies) the evidence suggests there is sentience present in insects.
  • Shouldn’t we assume everything is sentient and focus research on finding creatures that are not sentient?
    It depends on what you want the concept of sentience to do. For me and my team it’s important that once we recognise sentience in another animal, we must then take precautionary steps to protect welfare. It has to lead to action. We have to take action in the case of lobsters, crabs and octopuses to ensure these animals are not treated appallingly. If it is going to have that practical importance, there does need to be an evidence base there to justify and inform that. For example, there are microscopic animals where there is no evidence that they are sentient. This enables us to prioritise where we take action.

Literature references

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 only possible due to contributions from our partners and supporters.

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Supporting the Biological Recording Community

A blog by Keiron Brown, Founder of the Biological Recording Company

The primary aim of the Biological Recording Company is to support and expand biological recording activities within the UK. We do this through all of our products and services (such as earthworm consultancy or pollinator field recorder days). But if we take away the activities that are paid for by partners, clients and projects, there are still a number of things that the Biological Recording Company does for no financial gain and this blog celebrates 5 ways in which the Biological Recording Company is giving back to the biological recording community.

1. National Biodiversity Network Member

The National Biodiversity Network (NBN) brings together a range of organisations involved in the creation, management and exchange of biodiversity information. In addition to providing guidance and supporting the UK biological recording community, they developed and manage the NBN Atlas – a repository for storing biodiversity data in one place and the UK node for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

The Biological Recording Company is a proud paid member of the NBN and committed to supporting the work of the NBN through biological recording training, consultancy and, of course, the generation of species occurrence records.

Within the NBN, we also promise to ensure that the records that we generate make their way to the relevant National Recording Scheme/Society and Local Environmental Record Centre.

2. Recording London’s Invertebrates

Our Field Recorder Days help generate new species occurrence records and the events bring together both novice and experienced naturalists. Although many of these events are delivered through funded projects, I’ve delivered 3 Invertebrate Field Recorder Days in London during 2023 with no funding:

  • Tolworth Court Farm – 35 invertebrate recorders met to further the work that was started with the FSC BioLinks project and record the invertebrates of Tolworth Court Farm Fields and Tolworth Court Farm Moated Manor nature reserves to help gather evidence for the Wild Tolworth project. Specimens of the very rare Kenleenus armadas earthworm were collected by the Natural History Museum for genome sequencing as part of the Darwin Tree of Life project.
  • Chiswick House & Gardens – this joint event with the London Natural History Society (LNHS) brought together 25 naturalists, ranging from national experts to beginners. We focused on earthworms, bees, wasps, flies and ants and the event resulted in 109 species occurrence records being submitted to the LNHS iRecord activity
  • Hounslow Heath – another joint LNHS event, following a period of hot dry weather 11 invertebrate recorders did well to generate the 77 species occurrence records that were submitted to the LNHS iRecord Activity. Earthworms, ants, plant galls, flies and spiders were the focus.
Donate towards London Recording
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3. Shining A Spotlight on Research

entoLIVE was a passion project. Why should research be inaccessible to the wider naturalist audience and reserved for academics? Evidence-based conservation is essential for successful conservation.

The project involves recruiting guest invertebrate scientist speakers to talk about their research in live webinars and publishing the recorded presentations on YouTube. With 38 speakers booked at the time of writing and over 9,000 people booked, entoLIVE has been a big success.

Furthermore, it has now attracted sponsorship from the British Entomological & Natural History Society, environmentjob, Field Studies Council and Royal Entomological Society… meaning that entoLIVE will continue into the future as a truly collaborative initiative.

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4. Providing Guidance on iRecord

The Biological Recording Company stands firmly behind iRecord as our online recording platform of choice, mostly due to the method it uses for verification and the availability of records submitted to the platform to the relevant National Recording Scheme/Society and Local Environmental Record Centre for a given record.

That doesn’t mean that I think iRecord is perfect. It has its pros and cons, with some users finding it difficult to use it initiatlly. I hope to break down some of the barriers to using iRecord so that people don’t feel they need to be expert biological recorders in order to contribute data. I’ve produced a number of guidance videos about iRecord to help people better understand the platform and get more out of it. All the videos are publicly available via our YouTube channel, and I have more planned for the near future.

Check out iRecord guidance videos and more on our YouTube channel

5. National Earthworm Recording Scheme

As the National Recorder for Earthworms and a trustee for the Earthworm Society of Britain, I have been an active volunteer within the biological recording community for over 10 years. Verifying records on iRecord, responding to earthworm recorder queries, managing the species occurrence data and writing the National Earthworm Recording Scheme Bulletin are just some of the tasks that I perform. Working for the Biological Recording Company has enabled me to continue this work and even freed up more time to do a better job of it.

It’s also enabled me to find time to schedule additional Earthworm Sampling Days outside of the funded projects we work on for our clients.

  • Grove Farm Nature Reserve – this sampling day will take place on Sat 07 Oct 2023 and will be the first-ever earthworm survey for this site. We’re hoping to demonstrate that biological recording events at this site can be both popular and productive to encourage potential funders to back a larger biological recording programme.
  • Barnes Common – the team at Barnes Common Ltd have been trying to record as many species as possible to better understand the wildlife present and inform them how to manage their site for nature. They now have 13 earthworm species added to their list (see the report below) thanks to us!
Earthworm Sampling Day @ Grove Farm
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I’m only able to find the time and capacity to give back to the biological recording sector because of the variety of projects and partners that I work alongside on funded work. So I’d like to end this article with a HUGE thank you to all of those that have commissioned or supported the Biological Recording Company throughout our first 18 months! Keiron

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The Bugs Matter Citizen Science Survey: Where Every Journey Counts

The annual Bugs Matter survey is a national citizen science survey run by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, which aims to quantify trends in flying insect abundance. Participants record the number of insect splats on their vehicle number plates after completing a journey. This talk will explain how the data is collected and analyzed, what the results can tell us about insect population trends, and the challenges and opportunities for the survey in the future.

Q&A with Dr Lawrence Ball

Dr Lawrence Ball is a conservation scientist with over 10 years of experience in conservation research. Previously a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University, and an ESRC-funded PhD student at DICE, University of Kent, Lawrence now oversees data analytics within Kent Wildlife Trust’s Evidence and Monitoring department and manages Bugs Matter.

  • As cars are more aerodynamic in design now compared to the past, could this impact the results in any way?
    We have done an analysis looking at vehicle age against the number of splats and haven’t found any strong relationship between the two. We did actually find a slight positive relationship, with newer cars having slightly more splats. Unfortunately, we can’t fully test this until we do a wind tunnel experiment and stick some different types of vehicles in there and throw some bug-like items in there to try to understand it in more detail.
  • Do you take into account the increase in the volume of cars on the road over the years? 
    We have tried to look into traffic density using Google traffic data, but it turned out quite expensive due to the number of roads and months we required data for. There are so many other factors or co-variates that I personally think may have more of an impact, such as the surrounding habitats, speeds of vehicles, insect activity, flight periods and seasonality. There is a lot for us to explore so we have to prioritise what we have the capacity to investigate, but it would be great to understand the impacts of traffic density better.
  • Could the difference in HGV splats be due to the height of the number plate?
    Yes, there are a number of reasons that could be causing the difference. the aerodynamics going on at the front of the vehicle are going to be very different. In HGVs, the number plate can be slightly off-set compared with other vehicles and this could impact results too.
  • How will you make the new survey data comparable to the old data that used the splatometer to maintain the long-term dataset?
    Our previous unit of measurement was splats per mile and now the measurement will be splats per cm2 per mile, enabling us to compare the old and the new data.
  • Are there plans to swab the plates and do DNA analysis?
    This is something that could be possible in the future and could give us information on species diversity or even which individual species are being impacted. Obviously, there are costs associated with sequencing so it would really depend on funding and cost limitations, but would be great for helping us understand what is going on!

Literature references

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 only possible due to contributions from our partners and supporters.

More on citizen science

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Bumblebees & Their Differing Habitats: How a Decade of Citizen Science Has Increased Our Knowledge

Bumblebees are some of the best-loved insect species but much remains to be discovered about them. In this talk, we’ll hear how 10 years of citizen science monitoring data have been used to reveal the different habitat preferences among 14 British bumblebee species. Penelope will discuss the variation among species and what this means for bumblebee conservation.

Q&A with Dr Penelope Whitehorn

Dr Penelope Whitehorn is a wildlife biologist and works as co-Chief Scientist for Highlands Rewilding. After studying Zoology and Conservation, she worked for a number of conservation organisations in the UK, Eastern Africa and the US. Her PhD, at the University of Stirling, assessed the impacts of inbreeding and parasites on bumblebees. Much of her research since then has focussed on these delightful insects, including exploring the effects of pesticides and looking into the broader ecological effects of land management and climate change, the latter with an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship in Germany. In 2022, Penelope returned to Scotland to work for Highlands Rewilding but remains passionate about bumblebees!

  • What proportion of the associations was a surprise to you?
    Quite a large proportion. The negative associations of the semi-natural habitat with some of the more common species were a surprise and may be reflecting the capacity of the more widespread, human-impacted land covers to meet the requirements of these species. A number of the climate variables need more picking apart – there are some interesting relationships that I don’t even understand myself!
  • What are the challenges in getting your findings translated into changes in conservation practices to support bumblebees?
    The Bumblebee Conservation Trust takes onboard the results from analysis of their BeeWalk survey and was a partner on the paper. They will try and implement measures to help bees where they can. The main challenge always comes down to funding and the practicalities of getting stuff done on a large scale, for example, creating large habitat corridors across the landscape.
  • Do you factor in the presence of honey bees which may compete for food sources?
    We didn’t factor this in within this analysis – it was out of scope for this research paper. It is a potential contributing factor to the distribution of bees and there are other researchers looking into this.
  • Are the Shrill Carder Bee and Great Yellow Bumblebee as threatened in continental Europe?
    The Great Yellow Bumblebee (Bombus distinguendus) is sadly threatened across its range. The Shrill Carder Bee (Bombus sylvarum) is not as threatened in continental Europe, but it is still rare. I was delighted to see one in southern Germany, in an area of Alpine meadows – I only saw it after first being alerted to its presence by the namesake high-pitched noise!
  • Do casual records, for example on iNaturalist or iRecord, help?
    These records may be useful for other types of analysis. However, this analysis concentrated on the BeeWalk data as it used a standardised survey methodology – meaning that the various records were comparable. It is always worth checking with the Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society regarding where they recommend data should be submitted so that it can be used for other purposes, such as distribution maps.
  • Do you think any of the positive/ negative associations with habitats noted in the analyses will be impacted by body size of bumblebees?
    Again, this is slightly out of the scope of this analysis. It is definitely an interesting thing to think about, particularly when looking at the cryptic bumblebee species.

Literature references

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 only possible due to contributions from our partners and supporters.

More on bees

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The National Honey Monitoring Scheme: A Peek Behind The Scenes

The National Honey Monitoring Scheme (NHMS) was set up to monitor the health of the UK countryside, by working with beekeepers to determine the forage patterns of honey bees and to measure their exposure to agricultural pesticides whilst foraging. Jenny will take us behind-the-scenes of NHMS – from sample collection, through lab processing, to sequencing – to understand how honey is used to find out what plant species honey bees have been visiting. She will present some preliminary results from pollen analysis of 2019 honey samples, and give an overview of Dr Ben Woodcock’s research on pesticide residues in honey.

Q&A with Jenny Shelton

Jenny Shelton is a Molecular Ecologist at UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology whose interests in citizen science, pollinator diversity and beekeeping have culminated perfectly in running the NHMS!

  • Does this mean that the days of using microscopes for identification are over?
    This type of analysis very much complements, rather than replaces, identification using microscopes. Quite a few of the beekeepers that take in the scheme also send us their own reports of their recordings from the microscopy. It’s really useful to validate what we’ve been finding, but every so often they’ll report things that haven’t shown up in our analysis and we can then go and do a bit of a data dive. Normally this is because the ITS2 sequence is too large for our sequencing platform – so sequencing is not always perfect. This might be because the missing plant has a longer ITS2 sequence that we haven’t been able to sequence, or the sequence is missing from our reference database, so it is good to be aware of these occurrences. Pollen identification with microscopes is a very important skill that we need to retain!
  • Has the species list from your analyses been compared with the local flora for sample sites?
    There’s a team at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology that checks over the species list, thinking of land use and species distributions, to ensure there’s nothing on the list that doesn’t make sense and would be completely spurious. 
  • Do honeybees collect pollen from all non-native/invasive plant species or would there be some plants that you wouldn’t be able to record the spread of because the bees don’t pollinate them?
    This is a really good question and something that I personally think we should analyse once we have gotten all of the data together. At the moment we’ve only really got as far as what is there, but it would be great to look into what is not there and cross-reference this with lists of ornamental species that we know are sold commercially and are likely to be present. Understanding which species are present but not turning up in our pollination records suggests that the bees can’t use them for some reason, such as flower structure.
  • Is there evidence that bees that are relying on a small number of plant species are detrimental to the longevity or health of a hive?
    This is not something that we have shown from our research at the moment, but it is the general hypothesis and what we’d expect to see. As both a beekeeper and bee researcher, the thought is that hives are less likely to survive the winter and be prone to colony collapse disorder if they are feeding on a mono-crop.
  • Are you measuring glyphosate in honey?
    My colleague Ben leads on the pesticide research and I’ve not seen the full list of chemicals tested for, but I’d be surprised if that one isn’t in there.
  • Can we support bees if we only have a small or paved outdoor space?
    Putting as many potted plants and hanging baskets in the space as you can fit is still really helpful for pollinators. You can use climbers like honeysuckle across the fence. You could also possibly fit some flowerbeds in the borders and put up a bee hotel. There is a lot of guidance out there for people to garden for bees and other pollinators, for example, there are ‘Gardening For Bumblebees’ page on the websites of Bumblebee Conservation Trust and Buglife. My personal favourites for planting are borage and comfrey – they grow like weeds and will take off in any garden

Literature references

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 only possible due to contributions from our partners and supporters.

More on bees

Check out the Bees collection on Eventbrite

Marine Mollusc Recording Scheme: Discoveries from the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland

The Conchological Society‘s marine recording scheme will be 100 years old in 2023 yet is as relevant now as it has ever been. Current scheme coordinator Simon will outline what is involved and how data is gathered, verified, stored and shared.

Q&A with Simon Taylor

Simon has been the Hon. Marine Recorder for the Conchological Society since 2013. As well as maintaining the Society’s marine mollusc record dataset (>200,000 species occurrences) the role involves conducting, coordinating and promoting survey activity and closely monitoring developments in the marine mollusca fauna of the study area.

  • Do you get data from the Wildlife Trusts Shoresearch recording project?
    Yes, sometimes and this is often via iRecord. These types of projects are often, and understandably, run by people with broad knowledge of the wildlife that are likely to be encountered, rather than the specific mollusc knowledge that the Conchological Society brings. They often welcome the verification skills that we can provide and add data to iRecord to make use of the expert verifiers active on the platform for molluscs. In return, we welcome their data into our datasets!
  • What was the reason behind the destruction of records due to changes in data protection legislation?
    I wasn’t party to it myself, but quite a significant number of records were lost. I believe it was due to people being told to sign things stating that the data belonged to the Society. These were different times and there was a lot of confusion regarding the new legislation. Thanks to things like the National Biodiversity Network, we have a much better understanding and most recorders are very happy to share their records and get their data put to good use. Biological recording is a collaborative effort.
  • Do you have a relationship with the Porcupine Marine Natural History Society or the British Marine Life Studies Society?
    We do have a relationship with the Porcupine Marine Natural History Society and have a number of members in common. They cover all marine life and they have their own recording scheme for gathering marine records, and we’re happy for others to record and manage marine mollusc data as long as it is shared and available for use. However, as we specialise in molluscs, we consider our datasets the gold standard for molluscs in the UK. We also work quite closely with Seasearch, which gets volunteer divers to record the wildlife that they see when diving.
  • Why/how did Jeffreys’s material end up in the Smithsonian?
    Money. I think the estate was selling the collection of voucher specimens and the Natural History Museum (London) was simply outbid. The Smithsonian are very helpful in letting naturalists access the type material.
  • How did you get involved with the society and are there opportunities to be involved in Cumbria?
    As a child, my parents used to take me to Mersea Island (an interesting place connected by a B-road causeway which floods on spring tides) where I would pick up and look at shells and my parents enlisted me a junior member of the society back then. Later in life I renewed my interest, started getting more involved and started taking it more seriously. We are a national organisation, even international – but we are a relatively small society so we don’t have activities in every part of the UK. We host a week-long field excursion for marine recording each year as part of our field meetings programme. It’s also worth looking into getting involved with Shoresearch schemes run by local wildlife trusts.
  • Are there trends for warmer water species starting to appear?
    Yes – there is no doubt about this with marine molluscs. We are seeing species that were at the southern limit of their range retreating north and quite regularly new species that prefer warmer waters expanding their range northwards into our waters. New species tend to be recruited into the southwest of England (i.e. Cornwall and the Scilly Isles). Other species that are limited by winter minimum temperature, which impacts breeding viability, are now starting to colonise the North Sea.
  • Do you have a project on iNaturalist to upload marine mollusc records to?
    The best method for submitting records to us is via iRecord. The competitive nature of iNaturalist has led to a deluge of records of the same species from the same place, for example, dead mussel shells from every 5 steps they take along a sandy shore. Records submitted to iRecord are verified by the Conchological Society, whereas the iNaturalist records are verified by any other user regardless of experience. We also strongly encourage recorders to provide a full name (not a username as is often the case on iNaturalist) as this is one of the four W’s that is essential to any biological record. You can access a lot of experts via various Facebook groups, such as the British Marine Mollusca and NE Atlantic Nudibranchs groups.

Literature references

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 only possible due to contributions from our partners and supporters.

More on marine biology

Check out upcoming events on Eventbrite

Restoration, Rearing and Reintroductions: Saving the Freshwater Pearl Mussel

The Freshwater Pearl Mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) is a fascinating species and a powerful ecosystem engineer in the UK’s rivers and streams. Many of the UK’s populations are in freefall with the youngest individuals in the wild being over 70 years old! Time is running out for this species. This talk will explore what the Freshwater Biological Association and partners are doing to bring this species back from the brink of extinction.

Q&A with Louise Lavictoire

Louise Lavictoire is the Head of Science at the Freshwater Biological Association, leading an enthusiastic team of people working on species recovery and citizen science projects. Louise has worked on freshwater mussels for over 15 years trying to better understand their biology and limitations to inform their conservation and restoration in the wild.

  • What do the mussels feed on?
    They are filter feeders and mostly eat algae, but what they filter out is hotly debated – they may also take some bacteria. They also filter out small bits of clay or sediment out of the water column and sediment it out into the gravel around them.
  • What do you feed the juveniles in captivity?
    We feed them on a mix of commercially available algae, which we get from the USA. It’s a mix of Nannochloropsis (a small alga that is about 1-2 microns) and ‘shellfish diet’ (a mix of 5 or 6 marine algae). If we’re not augmenting the feeding we use filtered lake water from Windermere.
  • Is there a reason why some Freshwater Pearl Mussel exclusively use trout and why some exclusively use salmon?
    We were part of a UK-wide study in 2009 where we took samples from each of our English populations and compared them with Scottish and Welsh populations. The findings were that each population is specific and should be treated as a separate conservation unit. So we would only stock the River Irt with juveniles derived from the River Irt population. It is different for the River Kent population (for which we have a LIFE project – LIFE R4ever Kent) as we only have 3 mussels left in the entire population and so we are looking at which other English population would be most suitable as a donor for captive breeding and the local fish population, based on genetic similarity and use of the same host fish species.
  • Is there significant genetic diversity between populations in different catchments that we need to maintain for any restocking/restoration?
    We were part of a UK-wide study in 2009 where we took samples from each of our English populations and compared them with Scottish and Welsh populations. The findings were that each population is specific and should be treated as a separate conservation unit. Sowe would only stock the River Irt with juveniles derived from the River Irt population. It is different for the River Kent as we only have 3 mussels left in the entire population and we are looking at which population would be most suitable as a donor for captive breeding and the local fish population, based on genetic similarity and use of the same host fish species.
  • What do we know about the recent populations discovered in a loch in Scotland?
    I’m not sure if the population includes juveniles – which is the issue with most of our mussel populations as they are ageing populations with no new juveniles. The recent find in Scotland points very much to the fact that the habitat conditions are good enough for them to survive in slow-flowing waters which are still fairly pristine. If the oxygen concentrations are high enough and the substrate is relatively free of silt so that the juveniles that are dropping there are dropping into clean substrate, it would be fantastic news. We’d need further surveys to know more detail. However, the habitat conditions must be fairly pristine for mussels to be surviving there. They’re also known from Irish loughs too.
  • Is there any reason they are associated with low-calcium environments?
    I’m not sure if we know the answer to this. It does seem odd when you consider the size and thickness of their shell. However, they are absolutely not calcium tolerant and high lime concentrations can kill them.
  • Have you experienced mortality due to the patch on the exterior of the shell above the hinge perforating?
    We haven’t seen this. I’ve read in scientific papers that part of the shell (the umbo) can get worn away in fast-flowing waters and that mussels can plug it themselves with sand. This could be more pronounced in rivers that are more acidic.

Further info

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Big Wasp Survey: Investigating Social Wasp Populations Through Citizen Science

Big Wasp Survey is a citizen science initiative co-founded by Prof Seirian Sumner (University College London) and Prof Adam Hart (University of Gloucestershire). Members of the UK public sample vespine wasps in their local area, and submit their data. BWS has been running for 5 years, and it’s giving us a really good view of the diversity and distribution of vespine wasps in the UK, as well as insights into what influences citizen scientists to participate year after year.

Q&A with Prof Seirian Sumner

Seirian Sumner is a professor of behavioural ecologist at UCL (University College London). She uses a combination of field ecology and molecular biology to understand insect behaviour, with a particular fondness of wasps. She co-founded Big Wasp Survey in 2017, and published her first popular science book in 2022 – Endless Forms, why we should love wasps.

  • How do I sign up to get involved?
    to take part, you need to register through the Big Wasp Survey website and follow the instructions there. This year, we are inviting you to trap wasps in 2 separate sessions, one in July-August and one in the usual August-September slot, as you add traps, make you select which session the trap is part of. You can find full details on the How To Take Part webpage.
  • Do Big Wasp Survey records feed into NBN Atlas?
    At the moment our data hasn’t been submitted. We are working on our database at the moment and hope to make it publicly available in the future. At the moment we’re running it with no budget so capacity can be a little bit of an issue. We’re always happy to share the data if requested from us directly and can share spreadsheets of the annual data while we work on the database.
  • Do you have to kill social wasps for confident species identification?
    Firstly, check out the article written by Adam Hart and me in The Conversation that responds directly to this question. The problem with wasps is that it is really difficult to identify them. Even separating the common ones can be tricky, with the facial markings that distinguish Vespula germanica from Vespula vulgaris showing a lot of variation in reality. This means that photo of the face is often not enough to separate them as you also need to look at several points on the thorax and head. It is the same for other schemes that try to investigate the diversity and distribution of insect species, such as the government-funded UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme that involves putting out pan traps that collect and kill specimens. We are very mindful of the fact that the traps are lethal, so it is about surveying for as short a period as possible to gather the minimum data that you need and timing the survey to take place at the point in the colony cycle when the loss of individuals will have the lowest impact. It’s also worth putting the survey in the context of what is happening in the wider towns and cities that it takes place within: how many wasps are being killed by pest controllers for example? A single colony contains tens of thousands of wasps. If you compare the number of specimens taken through our survey, our impact really is negligible in comparison/
  • Is there no way of creating non-fatal traps and then photographing them for identification?
    Even if it was possible to catch wasps and identify them humanely using photographs, most of our participants would not have had the equipment, skills or experience to effectively get close-up photos of wasps. We also don’t do a big publicity drive each year as we don’t need a large number of samples and we’ve added a cap to the number of traps within a given postcode to ensure that an area isn’t over-sampled and wasps collected unnecessarily.
  • Are only wasps trapped and what happens to any other organisms that are caught?
    The beer traps do mainly attract wasps, but there is unfortunately also bycatch – particularly flies. We’ve sorted out the bycatch by taxonomic group and are very happy for anyone interested in those groups to take the specimens and identify them as we simply don’t have the capacity to get them identified. It can be quite trap-specific, so we think it may be to do with where the trap is hung.
  • What identification resources would you recommend for identifying wasps?
    You can find our guidance, including ID videos and the Big Wasp Survey ID Flow Key, in the Identification section of the BWS website. It’s designed for beginners and focuses on the species of wasp targeted by the Big Wasp Survey.
  • Are records outside of the survey useful and do you collect them from iRecord?
    The data that we gather needs to be from registered traps where the survey methodology has been followed. This enables us to compare results. However, ad hoc records of wasps are still really useful so you should continue to submit these. The national recording scheme for wasps is run by the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society and they can advise on the best means of submitting these records.

Literature references

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!

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DragonflyWatch: The National Dragonfly Recording Scheme

Dragonflies and damselflies make up the insect order Odonata and are the focus of the British Dragonfly Society (BDS). The BDS has accumulated over a million verified species occurrence records of dragonflies and damselflies have been accumulated through monitoring and recording of these fascinating insects, some dating back to the 19th century. This talk will provide an overview of the National Dragonfly Recording Scheme, how it influences dragonfly conservation and how you can get involved.

Q&A with Eleanor Colver

Eleanor Colver is Conservation Officer for the British Dragonfly Society. She graduated with a BSc Zoology with Conservation from Bangor University and an MSc Biodiversity and Conservation from Leeds University. After graduating, Ellie spent a year wading around in RSPB wetland reserves as a Warden Intern, performing practical habitat management with volunteers. She also spent two seasons as the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project’s Senior Research Assistant, monitoring upland wildlife. During this time Ellie had the opportunity to observe Odonata in a range of habitats and found that the more she learnt about their ecology the more she wanted to discover, leading her to her current role.

  • Can we use iRecord to submit data?
    The easiest way to submit records is through the Submit Your Records page on the British Dragonfly Society website, with the records going from there into the iRecord database. We also have the specific dragonfly forms listed on iRecord as an activity so you can also submit records through those and they are verified by our network of county recorders. We do also get the iRecord records not submitted through the dragonfly forms, but the dragonfly forms is tailored for dragonflies so it gives us better quality data. The dragonfly forms provide additional information on dragonfly life stages.
  • Do you receive records from Local Environmental Record Centres?
    We receive records from some LERCs. Our data is all publicly accessible and we encourage anyone that can use the data to access those – including the network of LERCs. LERCs are also able to access all of the iRecord data for the area that they cover.
  • Is there a cost to set up a monitoring scheme?
    Nope – we want more people to record dragonflies! It’s free and there are lots of resources on the Monitoring page on the BDS website. Alternatively, you can drop me an email and we’d be very happy to help you set one up. Obviously, joining BDS as a member supports our monitoring work and helps us do even more.
  • Are the reasons for the declines of Common Emerald, Black Darter and Common Hawker understood?
    Both the common Hawker and Black Darter are generally associated with peatland wetlands, specifically bog pools, and the main decline for both of these species has been seen in the south of England on lowland heaths, so we believe the decline is due to habitat loss – due to drainage, scrubbing over and climate change causing drought. We’re not entirely sure about the reasons for the decline in Common Emerald. It is still common but has declined significantly since 1970. We think it could possibly be related to climate change as this species is associated with shallow wetlands which could be drying out too early for the life cycle to be completed. This shows why it is so important to record the common species and not just the rarities – hence our push for complete lists at sites!
  • Can large populations of larvae affect amphibians success e.g. tadpoles and newts?
    Ponds will fluctuate over time with regard to the density of species. I advise leaving nature to run its course as dragonflies and amphibians have evolved alongside one another and it’s not uncommon to have lots of dragonflies one year and then switch to lots of amphibians the following year. Larger dragonfly larvae will eat tadpoles, but smaller dragonfly species are a food source for tadpoles/
  • Can we help dragonflies by creating a pond?
    We’ve lost so many of of our natural and farmland ponds over the past 100 years. Even a small pond is really helpful, though the bigger, the better. A significant proportion of UK dragonflies will breed in small ponds. Just don’t add fish as these will eat the larvae. The Gardening page on the BDS website provides advice and further links for anyone considering a pond. I’m really excited about this year as it is hopefully going to be the first year that I get dragonflies in my new garden pond!

Literature references

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 only possible due to contributions from our partners and supporters.

More on freshwater biology

Check out the Freshwater Invertebrates collection on Eventbrite