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People have been recording wildlife for centuries and the resulting datasets lead to important scientific research. The Biological Records Centre (BRC), established in 1964, is a national focus for terrestrial and freshwater species recording in the United Kingdom (UK). BRC works with the voluntary recording community (i.e. a mutualistic symbiosis) through support of national recording schemes (i.e. ‘citizen science’, but unlike most citizen science it is volunteer led) and adds value to the data through analysis and reporting. Biological recording represents a diverse range of activities, involving an estimated 70 000 people annually in the UK, from expert volunteers undertaking systematic monitoring to mass participation recording. It is an invaluable monitoring tool because the datasets are long term, have large geographic extent and are taxonomically diverse (85 taxonomic groups). It supports a diverse range of outputs, e.g. atlases showing national distributions (12 127 species from over 40 taxonomic groups) and quantified trends (1636 species). BRC pioneers the use of technology for data capture (online portals and smartphone apps) and verification (including automated verification) through customisable, inter-operable database systems to facilitate efficient data flow. We are confident that biological recording has a bright future with benefits for people, science, and nature.

Conservation biologists have only finite resources, and so must prioritise some species over others. The EDGE-listing approach ranks species according to their combined evolutionary distinctiveness and degree of threat, but ignores the uncertainty surrounding both threat and evolutionary distinctiveness. We develop a new family of measures for species, which we name EDAM, that incorporates evolutionary distinctiveness, the magnitude of decline, and the accuracy with which decline can be predicted. Further, we show how the method can be extended to explore phyogenetic uncertainty. Using the vascular plants of Britain as a case study, we find that the various EDAM measures emphasise different species and parts of Britain, and that phylogenetic uncertainty can strongly affect the prioritisation scores of some species.

This book provides detailed accounts of the 909 vascular plant hybrids reliably recorded in the wild in the British Isles.

Invasive alien species (IAS) are considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, particularly through their interactions with other drivers of change. Horizon scanning, the systematic examination of future potential threats and opportunities, leading to prioritization of IAS threats is seen as an essential component of IAS management. Our aim was to consider IAS that were likely to impact on native biodiversity but were not yet established in the wild in Great Britain. To achieve this, we developed an approach which coupled consensus methods (which have previously been used for collaboratively identifying priorities in other contexts) with rapid risk assessment. The process involved two distinct phases: 1. Preliminary consultation with experts within five groups (plants, terrestrial invertebrates, freshwater invertebrates, vertebrates and marine species) to derive ranked lists of potential IAS. 2. Consensus-building across expert groups to compile and rank the entire list of potential IAS. Five hundred and ninety-one species not native to Great Britain were considered. Ninety-three of these species were agreed to constitute at least a medium risk (based on score and consensus) with respect to them arriving, estab- lishing and posing a threat to native biodiversity. The quagga mussel,Dreissena rostriformis bugensis, received maximum scores for risk of arrival, establishment and impact; following discussions the unanimous consensus was to rank it in the top position. A further 29 species were considered to constitute a high risk and were grouped according to their ranked risk. The remaining 63 species were considered as medium risk, and included in an unranked long list. The information collated through this novel extension of the consensus method for horizon scanning provides evidence for underpinning and prioritizing management both for the species and, perhaps more importantly, their pathways of arrival. Although our study focused on Great Britain, we sugge

In this article, we have tried to step back from the details of the history of biological recording and its changing methods, and ask what we have learnt in the last 50 years.

The article considers how molecular evidence is starting to reveal the complex history of the Welsh poppy.

Changes in the distribution of the British flora have been well documented (Preston et al., 2002; Braithwaite et al., 2006). One might expect phytophagous insects, particularly host plant specialists, to respond to such changes, as they are dependent on plants for their food supply. However, large-scale assessments of the changes in distribution of insect taxa are rare, even though insects represent a major component of terrestrial biodiversity and there has been a long tradition of biological recording. In particular, the absence for most insect groups of repeat national surveys has limited the extent to which we can compare surveys at different time-periods. However, changes in the ranges of many species over time can be identified from the available sequence of records, and current research is providing more rigorous techniques to extract trend information from continuous records (Hill, 2011). Furthermore, phytophagous insects may respond to changes in the availability of food plants growing as agricultural crops, in parks and gardens and in the wild, whereas botanical studies usually provide information solely on wild populations. Assessment of insect population trends in relation to plant distributions are also complicated by the fact that other aspects of the environment have been changing simultaneously. We will review emerging evidence from analyses of insect distribution datasets in relation to changes in the distribution of plants alongside the effects of climate change, the arrival of non-native species and habitat modification. Lepidoptera are the most extensively studied group of insects in the UK and as such provide a wealth of evidence highlighting changes in the geographical range, abundance, phenology and biotic interactions of species. Some species of Lepidoptera have switched hosts in recent years. The Brown Argus butterfly, Aricia agestis, has expanded its distribution northwards in the UK, spreading away from calcareous grassland habitats (where

This article describes some of the features of this impressive work.

Potamogeton filiformis, P. pectinatus and P. vaginatus are three closely related species that produce sterile hybrids. These hybrids can be extremely difficult to identify, especially if in a vegetative state. To solve this problem, a protocol involving restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of internal transcribed spacer rDNA is described that allows all three species and their hybrids to be distinguished. Analysis of internal transcribed spacer sequences shows that P. filiformis is closely related to P. vaginatus (differing by only a single substitution), whereas P. pectinatus differs from both by three indels and at least 20 substitutions. Infra-specific sequence variation was seen only in P. pectinatus, in which material from arctic Russia differed from that from Scotland, the Nordic region, the Netherlands and Italy by seven mutations.

Since the nineteenth century, the western European endemic Meconopsis cambrica has been regarded as the only European representative of the genus Meconopsis Vig. This genus, which is otherwise restricted to the Himalayas, differs from Papaver in having a style rather than a stigmatic disc. A phylogenetic reconstruction using 65 internal transcribed spacer sequences of 62 taxa of Old World Papaveroideae and three outgroup taxa shows that M. cambrica is not the closest relative of the remainder of Meconopsis but rather the closest sampled relative of Papaver s.str. This is consistent with morphological evidence which suggests that the style evolved independently in M. cambrica from a Papaver-like ancestor. We suggest that Meconopsis cambrica should revert to its former name, Papaver cambricum L. We also suggest that: (1) the Arctic-montane species of Papaver sect. Meconella need to be placed in their own genus; (2) Papaver sect. Argemonidium (including P. argemone and P. hybridum) should be included in Roemeria Medik.; and (3) the basal lineage of Asian Meconopsis needs to be treated as an independent genus, Cathcartia Hook.f. As Meconopsis cambrica is the type of Meconopsis, conservation of Meconopsis Vig. with a different type is required to avoid further nomenclatural changes. The evolutionary history of M. cambrica is briefly discussed.

The long history of the deliberate or accidental and human-mediated dispersal of flowering plants has led to the introduction of foreign genotypes of many species into areas of Europe hitherto occupied by potentially distinct native populations. Studies of the genetic and evolutionary consequences of such changes are handicapped by the difficulty of identifying the surviving native populations of many species in the absence of clear morphological differences. We investigated the relationship between putative native and introduced populations of the herbaceous perennial Meconopsis cambrica (Papaveraceae), as the isolated native populations of this species can be identified by historical and ecological evidence. In Britain, the species is scarce and declining as a native, but has become increasingly frequent in recent decades as a garden escape. Native populations from Spain and France were compared with native and introduced British populations using internal transcribed spacer and cpDNA sequences and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs). Ten of the twelve British populations could be unambiguously assigned to native or introduced groups using cpDNA and AFLPs. The introduced plants appear to originate from the central and eastern Pyrenees rather than from native British sites. Two populations (including one previously considered native) cannot be classified unambiguously. There is unequivocal evidence for unidirectional gene flow from native plants into two of the introduced populations and possible evidence for hybridization in three other sites (two native). The absence of biological barriers to hybridization suggests that the native and introduced gene pools of M. cambrica in Britain might eventually merge.

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition across Europe increased substantially from the 1950s to the 1990s. Targeted surveys suggest a negative correlation between N deposition and species richness within quadrats in sensitive habitats. However, it remains unclear whether plant species losses at national recording scales are correlated with nitrogen deposition. We relate plant species losses before 1987 in Great Britain to reduced and oxidized N deposition, land use change and climate change. The mean Ellenberg fertility (N) indices of plant species lost in each 100 km2 cell before 1987 was compared with those of species that were recorded between 1987 and 1999. In 45% of squares, indices of species lost were significantly lower than those for species present after 1986. For 17%, primarily upland, squares, the opposite effect was found. A generalized least squares regression model, with difference in the mean Ellenberg N index between samples as the dependent variable, showed that higher deposition of reduced N was significantly associated with selective loss of species with a lower index. Arable land use and change in arable land use also demonstrated this positive relationship. Rough grazing, change in rough grazing, change in pasture and change in annual precipitation showed negative effects. Difference in Ellenberg R index was highly correlated with difference in Ellenberg N and was negatively correlated with oxidized N deposition, suggesting that the lack of a significant effect of oxidized N deposition on Ellenberg N was because it had effects through both acidification and eutrophication, while the effect of reduced N deposition was primarily through eutrophication. Our results suggest that N deposition, along with land use and precipitation changes, has been a significant driver of local plant extinctions. With N deposition increasing in many parts of the world, local extinctions of plant species may be experienced in other regions.

We assessed national scale changes in the forage plants of bumblebees in Britain, as a means of providing quantitative evidence for the likely principal cause of declines in bumblebee species. We quantified the relative value of native and long-established plant species as forage (nectar and pollen) resources for bumblebees by collating visitation data from 14 field sites across Britain. Twentieth Century changes in range and frequency of these forage plants were assessed using data from the New Atlas of the British and Irish Flora (1930–1969 to 1987–1999) and the Countryside Surveys of Britain (1978–1998). Forage plants declined in both large-scale range and local-scale frequency between the two survey periods. These changes were of greater magnitude than changes in other native plant species, reflecting serious reductions in quality of foraging habitats for bees as well as a general decline in insect-pollinated plants. Seventy-six percent of forage plants declined in frequency within 1-km squares, including those (e.g. Trifolium pratense) of particular value for threatened bumblebee species. We consider how our findings relate to other recorded changes in the British flora, how they may help to explain declines in bumblebees and how they could contribute to a conservation strategy.