Record, Research, Respond! – Biological recording in a changing world at BBC Gardeners’ World Live 2012

CEH is back at the BBC Gardeners’ World and Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham this year, hoping to encourage the gardeners and food lovers amongst you to get involved in biological recording. Scientists will also be on hand to explain more about how the records sent in by volunteers get used for scientific research and in policy making.  The show opened on Wednesday 13 June and runs until Sunday 17 June, so still plenty of time to come along for a visit!



Biological recording in a changing world - the CEH stand!



The UK probably has the best recorded flora and fauna of any country in the world. Much of this is down to the invaluable inputs of amateur recorders. Everyone can contribute records of things they see during their everyday lives, from butterflies and bees to flies and fleas – websites and mobile phone apps are making the process even quicker!




Insect specimens can be viewed up close and under the microscope

 

Biological records submitted are used to form initial distribution maps. The first national atlas was the Atlas of the British Flora, published 50 years ago in 1962 – members of the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) are at our Gardeners’ World stand to explain more about this ground-breaking publication and the legacy it created, as well as chat more generally about topics such as wildflowers.



Members of the BSBI were at the stand discussing wildflowers and
historical botany recording.



Scientists at CEH and other research institutes use this wealth of biological data within research projects that look to develop answers to the complex environmental issues facing the planet. Scientists from two such projects, the Conker Tree Science Leaf Watch and the UK Ladybird Survey, are on the stand to discuss their own experiences while our displays of heathland plants in decline and urban plants on the increase represent some of the environmental changes that have been detected thanks to biological records.



Cream-spot ladybird larva under the microscope.

 

Scientific discoveries help to inform, conserve
and restore the environment



Please pop by for a visit to learn more and play biodiversity Jenga! The stand is number GFW3 in Hall 19 of the NEC.

Postscript: added 27 June 2012

We were delighted with the wonderful response and interest from visitors to the stand over the five days of the show. What's more, our stand won a Highly Commended award from the organisers! You can view lots more photos on our Flickr set (link below).

Additional information

View more photos from our stand on Flickr

Biological Records Centre

Botanical Society of the British Isles

BBC Gardeners' World Live

mySoil free smartphone app

Posted by Paulette Burns

Pollinators, the public and putting your MSc project in the hands of the elements

Staff and students from CEH are heavily involved with the first ever national farm pollinator survey on 17 June as part of Open Farm Sunday. In this week’s guest blog, newly arrived MSc student Lucy Cornwell describes the role she will be playing in the survey.

I am an MSc student from the University of Leeds, based at CEH’s headquarters site in Wallingford for the summer. My main role is to assist Dr Helen Roy and Dr Michael Pocock with a citizen science pollinator monitoring scheme, a collaboration between the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), Linking Environment And Food (LEAF) and Syngenta. The data will be collected by the public, and the project will run as part of Open Farm Sunday, a nationwide event organised by LEAF. For the past six years, farmers have been opening their doors (and gates!) to educate the public on food production and modern farming issues. This year around 300 farms are taking part on June 17th, and at least 30 of these will also be participating in the pollinator monitoring scheme. Limited funding in biological recording means that citizen science programmes are now an important tool in gathering large and geographically widespread datasets.


The public play an important role in biological recording.



The pollinator activities will consist of two surveys; one making five minute observations of two habitats; crop and non-crop, recording the invertebrate orders which visit the flowers. The second targets five species which are included in current recording schemes and participants simply note whether or not they have seen them. Voluntary experts will be available for assistance and to identify any interesting invertebrates. On the day I will be based at a farm ten minutes from CEH’s Wallingford site, which has invited children from two local schools. Parents will also be coming and we will welcome their help with the survey, adding extra sets of eyes to the task.

Aside from looking at invertebrates, the children will have a chance to learn about crop production, see some large farm machinery and play with the chickens! The focus at this site is keeping the children entertained so they don’t lose enthusiasm and their invertebrate spotting skills. If the weather doesn’t cooperate then the survey will have to take a back seat to other activities, and I will quietly weep into the redundant recording sheets.

The aim of the pollinator monitoring project is to increase public interest in wildlife and biological recording schemes, whilst collecting scientifically useful data on farmland pollinator communities. Once participants have completed the survey they can either enter their data onsite to see it added to the database, or upload it via the Open Farm Sunday website. Headline results will be released in the days following the event, before we look at the data more closely. If all goes to plan then the data should provide patterns of distribution of certain species, and form the basis for a repeatable survey revealing any changes in this over time.  It may also reveal differences in invertebrate community structure geographically, and between different farm types. Our hope is that a better understanding of how pollinators carry out their work in different habitats will help farmers to grow more food sustainably, and lead to a more wildlife friendly landscape.

There are nearly 300 bee species in Britain, most of them
solitary bees such as this one. Together they provide a large
proportion of pollination services in the country.









Overall it should be a really enjoyable day for everyone involved, and a chance for us all to learn something about farmland invertebrates.

Fingers crossed for sunshine!

Posted by Lucy Cornwell

Additional information

More details about the farm pollinator survey from the Open Farm Sunday website.

Staff pages of Dr Helen Roy and Dr Michael Pocock at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.

Watch videos about the pollinator survey on our YouTube channel

Creating a buzz: the first ever national farm pollinator survey



Ecologists, including scientists from CEH,
 are supporting the survey

Hundreds of farms around Britain are opening their gates to members of the public on Sunday 17 June, with activities for all ages taking place as part of the seventh annual Open Farm Sunday.

This year’s event will also feature the first ever national farm pollinator survey taking place on selected farms across the country, with members of the public joining ecologists in the scientific recording of “pollinators” such as bees, beetles, hoverflies, butterflies and moths which play an important role in the production of our food and the health of the environment.

LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming), the organisers of Open Farm Sunday, have teamed up with the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and Syngenta to carry out the survey in order to find out more about these essential insects. Scientists from CEH will not only be carrying out surveys on the day itself, but will validate and analyse the results collected by the public.

The information collected through the survey will identify trends, improve understanding of the ecology of insects visiting flowers on farms, and in turn help farmers with their work to conserve and encourage pollinating insects.

Pollination

Pollination is an important and natural process that is vital to the production of many foods and the countryside. It is the movement of pollen from one plant to another, and is needed for many plants and crops to reproduce. Pollination takes place when the pollen lands on the stigma of plants, having been transported there by insects, the wind or animals.

Those taking part in the survey will be provided
with information on how to identify insects.

 























Approximately 80% of plant types rely on insects for pollination, which is why insect pollinators such as bees, beetles and flies are so important to both the production of our food and the countryside.

It is estimated that insect pollinators are worth more than £500 million to the UK economy because of their contribution to food production and also because they are needed to help maintain the biodiversity of the countryside. As well as their importance to the economy, scientists and farmers need to know much more about the activity of different insect groups and their role in providing a service on farms through pollination.

Insects are attracted to plants for a variety of reasons, of which smell is the most common, although colour and nectar can also play a part. For pollinating insects, plants are also an important source of nutrients.

Pollination is an essential ecosystem service which also supports other vital ecosystems including soil protection and flood control. Without pollinating insects, plants would not be able to reproduce as efficiently, while birds that rely on seeds would be at risk.

As there are thousands of insect species in the UK alone, the scientists leading the survey are asking the public for help. Dr Helen Roy, an ecologist at CEH, said: “We are extremely concerned that long-term surveys are highlighting declines in pollinating insects. People across the country can play a valuable part in recording pollinators on farms and help us to discover more about these important insects.  We want visitors on participating farms to spend a little time recording how many insects they see in two different habitats, such as a field of wheat and a margin of wildflowers. "

Dr Helen Roy introduces the Pollinator Survey

Dr Roy continues, "In addition we have selected five insects, including the common blue butterfly and the 14-spot ladybird, for visitors to record anywhere on the farm they visit.  After Open Farm Sunday all the research will be collated and analysed by a team of scientists and the results shared with farmers to help them conserve pollinating insects on their farms.”

It is a myth that bees are the only insects that pollinate plants and crops. Although it is widely recognised that honeybees carry out insect pollination, the managed honeybee is just one species amongst the 25 species of bumblebee, 225 species of solitary bee and hundreds of butterfly and hoverfly species that make up the UK’s pollinator fauna. Moths, wasps, ladybirds and other insects also play their part in insect pollination.

Visitors needn’t worry however if they don’t know the bumblebee from the honey bee or a stag from a soldier beetle as there will be trained recorders on hand to help on many farms, as well as leaflets, posters and website downloads to help with the identification of the insects.

Additional information

The seventh annual Open Farm Sunday on 17 June 2012 provides a great opportunity for the public to get to know how their food is produced and how the countryside around them is cared for. Visitors will be able to learn from farmers themselves how natural plant and insect species are encouraged to thrive alongside crops, they will get a close-up look at farm animals and see how the needs of wildlife are balanced with modern food production.

• Find a farm to visit on Open Farm Sunday
• For more information about LEAF's work, visit http://www.leafuk.org/
• Dr Helen Roy's staff page at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Global change, plant-soil interactions and ecosystems services.

Dr Nick Ostle of CEH is an ecologist and biogeochemist interested in global change effects of land use, climate change and atmospheric deposition on biodiversity and other ecosystem services. He also has a history of work on plant-soil interactions and their influence on carbon and nitrogen cycles in peatlands and grasslands in the UK and around the world.  Nick was one of the speakers at this year's inaugural Plant Science conference held at the John Innes Centre in April, designed to showcase the wealth of plants science undertaken in the UK.

You can watch the video of his talk now, made available on YouTube by the conference organisers. It includes examples of CEH's research activities which involve a combination of long term plant-soil surveys, field scale experimentation and measurements, and laboratory manipulations.

• Video talks from the meeting
• Plant Science 2012

Bringing science to the local community

Staff from CEH's Edinburgh site organised several events for the local community as part of this year's National Science and Engineering Week 2012. The events comprised two science "Have-a-go" days on March 10 and 17 in Penicuik Town Hall, and two science public lectures on the same days: "Hunting the Higgs" by Dr Andy Buckley (Edinburgh University and CERN), and "To Breathe or Not to Breathe" by Dr Brian Miller (Institute of Occupational Medicine). In a guest blog, event organisers Sue Owen and Mhairi Coyle reveal how the days went:

"Penicuik is a location where it can be hard to attract big audiences to events like these: we were hoping for 50 visitors minimum for each of the Have-a-go Days, and 25 minimum for the evening lectures, but we weren't confident that we could achieve even those numbers. Happily we were proved wrong!


Creating a tornado in a bottle
















We were delighted that all four events were hugely successful - well attended and well appreciated by the public. Attendance at the Have-a-go days was from a wide age range - from toddlers to older people. The first Saturday attracted more than 130 visitors, and the second around 120. (The second day was particularly warm and sunny, which we think prevented a few more people attending!)

Frequent appreciative comments were heard, including "Isn't it great to have something like this in Penicuik?" The first public lecture attracted a full house of 50, and the second attracted an audience of 41. Thus attendance at all events far exceeded expectations. The audiences for the lectures were also very appreciative and indicated that more science lectures like these would be very welcome in Penicuik.

The events took place thanks to the efforts of a 12-strong group of CEH scientists who met twice to brainstorm ideas and plan details, and a sub-group who met to review draft posters and presentations. Activities on the day were based on previous outreach activities devised by Drs Clare Howard and Marsailidh Twigg, as well as activities from Dr Mhairi Coyle derived from her involvement with the Institute of Physics, plus demonstrations of instrumentation, as well as a very popular offering of paper chromatography from trainee science teacher Dr Paul Murray. We also had crafts and story-telling from local art group "Making Space, Penicuik" as well as posters and displays.

In particular the events looked at how pollution affects us and the environment. Using games and simple experiments, we set out to examine how we can see the effects of pollution,  why we should care and some of what we can do about it. Using the theme, "I'm a nitrogen molecule, get me out of here", the effect of too much nitrogen was illustrated and explained in various ways: on the soil through the use of balloons; on biodiversity (with a butterfly card game); on air (NOx skittles) and on water (gloopy fishing!).

Fishing in gloop to show the effects of nitrogen pollution






















The instrumentation demonstrated ways of measuring pollution, while a simple method of analysing pollutants was illustrated with paper chromatography, separating compounds and making beautiful patterns into the bargain. Further pollution effects were demonstrated by "ozone good guy/bad guy", comparing real ozone-damaged plants to healthy ones, and by examing lichen specimens and their tolerance to pollution. The study of pollution carried by wind and water was made fun by making clouds in a bottle, and making a tornado in a bottle - this proved very popular! We also measured wind with sound, and then sensed sound with our fingers.

In addition, we invited the local craft group "Making Space, Penicuik" to participate in both events, making felt butterflies and using felt animals and a felt landscape to tell a story about pollution from fertilizers. This provide a great balance to the activities, particularly for the younger visitors.

From the feedback forms we received, most responders indicated that they would continue to discuss the science after the event and that they were now more interested in science. Everyone who responded indicated that they would attend a similar event in future. Such outreach work is an important element of the "Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research" from the Research Councils UK (RCUK). Overall, we hope our events in Penicuik succeeded in bringing environmental science concepts to a local community that doesn't normally engage with science, in an enjoyable and fun way."

Sue Owen and Mhairi Coyle, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.


Further information

• See more photos from the science "have-a-go" days in Penicuik Town Hall on Flickr
• National Science & Engineering Week

Butterflies, biodiversity indicators and long-term change

Updated 1655 19th April 2012 with table of 'winners' and 'losers' (see below)


This morning the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme published results for surveys carried out in 2011. The UKBMS has run since 1976 and involves thousands of volunteers collecting data every week throughout the summer from more than 1000 sites across the UK.

Data for the UKBMS is classified as official statistics which are subsequently used as biodiversity indicators for the whole of the UK and at a country level in England and Scotland. The data is crunched to produce indicators for habitat specialist and wider countryside specialists. In England there is more detailed work producing indicators which analyse differences in farmland and woodland habitats.

Heath Fritillary c. Ross Newham



 

Annual trends are interesting, but monitoring of longer term changes is also very important in order to assess the state of UK butterfly populations. Dr Marc Botham stated in the press release accompanying the UKBMS 2011 release that, “Annual trends show us how strongly the day-to-day weather can affect butterfly populations in the short-term but the UKBMS dataset collected over 36 years reiterates the importance of long-term data in assessing the beyond these annual fluctuations.”

Trends in specialist and wider countryside species - taken from 'The State of the UK's Butterflies 2011'

If you’re interested in the longer term changes in the state of UK butterflies take a look at the “The State of the UK’s Butterflies 2011” report, published late last year, which uses the UKBMS data collected over two decades to conclude that “Almost three-quarters of UK butterfly species have decreased in population during the last decade.”

Links

CEH news story on the 2011 UKBMS results

More on how butterfly data is used for biodiversity indicators can be found on the UKBMS website

The latest UK Biodiversity indicators were published in May 2011  The 2012 version should be published next month and will incorporate the UKBMS statistics published today.

The 2011 UKBMS statistics 'Summary of changes' can be found here (pdf)

Examples of butterfly species used within the different indicators include:

Farmland – Adonis blue

Woodland- Purple emperor, white admiral, purple hairstreak

Specialists – large blue, the fritillaries

Wider countryside – Peacock, small tortoiseshell, orange tip, all of the whites

More details are available from The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme

Update - 1655 17th April 2012

Butterfly Conservation, our partners in the Uk Butterfly Monitoring Scheme have supplied a table of the top 10 species of 'winner's and 'losers' from the 2011 statistics. n.b. results should be interpreted with caution as some of the percentage values, such as the number for the Glanville Fritillary, are based on relatively small sample sizes. All the background details can be found in the pdf file containing the full statistics here.

Shelducks on Doxey Marshes

Shelducks on Doxey Marshes, a photo by AndyStraw on Flickr.

Many thanks to those of you who have added photos to our "Wetlands in the UK" group on Flickr. A few contributors have been busy over the Easter holiday period: images added in the last week include shots of shelducks, moorhens and egrets.

The group is a place to share photos taken at any wetlands site in the UK, particularly photos of the species that depend on and thrive on those sites. Photographs of birds definitely predominate at the moment! Why not browse through the images and consider adding any of your own that are relevant.