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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

Not sure if this is the right place, but here goes...

I am having problems in Recorder reporting automatically on BAP & NERC species - this problem does not originate from Recorder, but rather the BAP & NERC lists themselves!

The BAP & NERC lists include a number of birds as subspecies ONLY - e.g. Alauda arvensis arvensis (skylark) plus many other COMMON examples, willow tit, marsh tit, red grouse

Almost none of our data is actually picked up by the Recorder Designation lists because none of our birders record to subspecies, so all our skylark records (recorded as Alauda arvensis) are ignored by both the NERC & BAP Priority lists.

My real question is WHY are the lists so precise when almost no amateur birders record to sub-species, hence the bulk of our data is ignored - I seriously suggest the BAP & NERC lists be revised to species level - the number of records for non-British sub-species (particularly in land-locked Staffordshire) are likely to be so low that their accidental inclusion will make no difference to BAP Targets.

If anyone knows of a more relevant BAP forum, please feel free to repost this on there!

Craig Slawson
Staffordshire Ecological Record

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

Hmm, I wonder if you record at a "higher taxon" level (i.e. anything that is not at the bottom level in the tree, including species in this case), then they should be included in reports where the taxa beneath them are designated. A poor example, but if someone records a mammal, how do you know it is not designated because it is a bat?

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

johnvanbreda wrote:

then they should be included in reports where the taxa beneath them are designated

The conservationist in me says yes, the consultant says no :rolleyes:

Of course, was the record of Alauda arvensis just to species level becuase the recorder was "lazy" or was it because they couldn't distinguish between subspecies?

I think it would be technically wrong to designate Alauda arvensis - it would be much better to correct the problem at source (i.e. record at subspecies level) but how you do this is anyones guess...

Charlie Barnes
Information Officer
Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

John / Charlie

I think you've missed my point - I give an example for Lagopus lagopus (Willow Grouse/Red Grouse)
L.lagopus scoticus - Red Grouse occurs in UK might be endemic
L.lagopus lagopus - Willow Grouse (s.s.) does not occur in UK

BirdGuides class the species as sedentary, i.e. doesn't migrate so in UK ...
Lagopus lagopus scoticus = Lagopus lagopus for recording purposes, so why only include L.l.scoticus on the BAP list - I know I could change all my L.l. records to L.l.scoticus, but that would be inferring a precision not present in the original record.

I know in other species the continental variety comes into the UK occasionally, but with regard to BAP or NERC their presence is insignificant in comparision with the population of the native birds, so again I do not see the point of only listing the sub-species.

Even worse is the example of Linnet:

the aggregate Carduelis cannabina subsp. autochthona/cannabina is listed on the NERC list, but neither Carduelis c.subsp. autochthona nor Carduelis c. subsp. cannabina is! And that isn't the only one!

Craig Slawson
Staffordshire Ecological Record

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

First, I agree that you should not infer precision in the record that is not intended. The record should definitely be an accurate record, not a fudge, so if the record is made at species level that is what goes in Recorder. But likewise, if the BAP designation is at subspecies level, we also should not fudge the dictionary data, so it should remain at subspecies level.

Back to Charlies point that it would be wrong to designate Alauda arvensis - I wasn't suggesting that, what I was suggesting that was when you pull a report out, the report can give you possible designations (e.g. in italics), where the record is at too high a level to be certain if it is designated or not. In effect this is the same as making Lagopus lagopus a BAP designated species, except that we are a) not fudging the data, so if we change our minds we can, and b) marking the "fudge" so it is clear.

Museums have to deal with a lot of inferred data like this - e.g. where you know the locality of an explorer during a given year, and therefore can make inferrences about where their specimens were taken. Such data is always marked as inferred. In this case, we are inferring that any Lagopus lagopus in the UK is always Lagopus lagopus scoticus. My point is we must do this at the reporting level, not the data level, otherwise we might find cases where we find we were wrong and the other sub-species does occur in the UK after all.

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

John, the BAP designation is unnecessarily at sub-species level in most cases. For red grouse the footnote to the birds list in the UKBAP Review 2007 states that all UK birds are in the sub-species scoticus. There are similar comments for most of the birds listed as sub-species, although some exclude wintering continental migrants and Scottish island races, but it appears that these footnotes were ignored in the creation of the dictionary which appears to be a simple import of the list.

Surely it is better and easier to include all potentially listed records and know that some might need to be excluded than to have to hunt the missing ones down. If this is the list which is going to have top be used for at least the next 5-10 years then it at least needs to be made fit for purpose. There is the potential situation where, come the next review, there are no records for half the birds that need to be reported on because of a defective list.

Gordon

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

That's what my original proposal would have done - if a species record is made, and there is a designation beneath this species at the sub-species level, then this record gets included when filtering on the designation. It's a bit like the "include partial overlaps" facility for mapping against polygons.
I'm not arguing against changing the way the BAP lists are designated, but from the software's perspective we cannot always dictate the input data, so we need to find the best way of working with what we have got.

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

I think that approach is right for some cases - I think putting a catch-all designation against Chiroptera has been suggested in the past and is probably the best example where you are unable to fully identify something that may be important. I am not sure it would work in this case, as part of the problem is that the poorly constructed sub-species aggregates in the designation checklists are not children of the taxa that would be recorded against in the BIRDS or Recorder 3.3 checklists, or if done in a way that would work, would probably be the more complicated solution. Alternatively we are both saying the same thing in most respects and just have mild differences on the details.

I suppose that if we all agree that something needs to be done to correct this then it could just be passed to whoever needs to do it, to work out the details, not sure whether that would be you, John, or Lynn or even Charles Hussey (or does he only deal with the preferred lists?), as long as it all filters through to the dictionaries in both Recorder and NBN Gateway.

G

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust

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Re: BAP & NERC Protected Lists

Sounds sensible...

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT