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Topic: Failure to use NBN Gateway or Marine Recorder for JNCC report

Hello James
I was pleased to see that Seasearch data on Laminaria hyperborea has been used in the recent report #594 for JNCC on 'Exploring the Components and Processes of Marine Ecosystems Critical to Ecosystem Generation' http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-7290
However, the report's authors used OBIS as the sole source of data, stating that "Due to time constraints associated with this report, other data sources for the distribution of kelp, such as the National Biodiversity Network or Marine Recorder were not considered".
OBIS provided them with 9,581 records of L. hyperborea.  The NBN Gateway would have provided them with 12,224 and the data would have been much more current.  The Seasearch dataset (which comprises 41% of the records of this species) only contains records dated up to 2012 on OBIS but has records dated up to 2015 on the NBN Gateway.
Marine Recorder would have provided the authors with information on the recorded distribution of the various kelp biotopes - of course this would correlate spatially with the species distribution data but it would provide additional information that could be useful in the context of ecosystem services.
JNCC has invested so much in the NBN Gateway and Marine Recorder, I'm sorry to see that neither were used in a report that was produced for JNCC.
Can the report's authors explain why they found the NBN Gateway and MR too time-consuming to use?  This might provide useful information for improving these or future tools (e.g. NBN Atlases).
Many thanks
Paula