Having been alerted to Chris Packham’s call for a wildlife
recording revolution, I put on my ‘Mr Grumpy’ hat yet again! It seems to me
that there are for ever calls for more ‘citizen science’ and a mass ‘call to
arms’ amongst those with limited expertise and masses of enthusiasm. We saw
this with the FoE Great British Bee Count and saw its results so neatly expressed
in comparative maps produced by BWARS. We have also had an ongoing chorus of
effort to increase biological recording through various NBN and OPAL
initiatives.
Those of us at the very sharp end of biological recording
(i.e. the Recording Schemes) are fully aware that there is a general belief
that there are insufficient data. As scheme organisers we ought to be extremely
grateful for the raised profile and the flood of incoming records. It therefore
feels ungrateful to be saying anything negative but, as is my wont, I feel I do
have to say something. Unlike most people I am no ‘shrinking violet’ – I say
what needs to be said and am doubtless dismissed as a ‘moaning Minnie’. I’ll
bet the groan goes up ‘oh hell, Morris is at it again – I wish that b….r would
just shut up and let us get on with generating records’.
Unfortunately, somebody needs to say something because there
seems to be a belief that there is a magical expert tree. If the records are
there the experts will crawl out just clamouring to deal with them. Well, I don’t
see a great deal of evidence for this. There seem to me to be two groups within
‘expert’ circles: those who will engage and those who stick their heads down
and avoid any contact with ‘citizen science’. Thus, the actual numbers of
specialists who can assist in delivering reliable data are painfully small, and
there is a big danger that as demand for their service increases they in turn
get so worn out that they don’t want to engage.
A serious discussion is needed
Before we rush into a clamour for more biological records,
perhaps we should ask ourselves why we want them and how they are going to be
used? That bit of the circle does not seem to have been properly thought
through.
When biological recording took off in the 1960s it was all
about biogeography – mapping projects. We did not have a clue as to the
distribution and abundance of wildlife and the first simple step is to map it
and then to look for patterns that relate to environmental factors such as
land-cover, lat/long, hard and drift geology, hydrology etc. This first step
has very largely been achieved, but today we are also able to link it to
climate envelopes and to chart changes that result from climate warming.
In the 1980s there was a real push to develop a way of
expressing ‘rarity’. Various Red Data Books emerged. Having had a hand in some
of the invertebrate projects I think the best we can say is that at the time we
had limited information and at least some of the statuses attributed to species
were way out! Over time, we have seen statuses revised and refined; but we have
also seen how statuses can change quite dramatically over relatively short
periods of time. So, one additional purpose of biological recording must be
about monitoring and creation of a feedback loop.
More recently, powerful computing has facilitated a flurry
of interest in modelling using a variety of Basian techniques. In theory,
modern occupancy models smooth out irregularities of sampling intensity;
however, Stuart and I now have robust evidence that the limited spread of most
biological recording is skewing outputs. Yes, all models and all datasets show
major declines, but the steepness of the decline and the breadth of the decline
is affected by the depth of taxonomic coverage. Very little thought is being
given to the depth and breadth of records issue.
This brings me on to the critical biological recording
bottleneck. As I see it, the problem is not a lack of biological recording.
This must be the golden age of biological recording, with datasets growing at
unprecedented levels. For the Hoverfly Recording Scheme we have seen record
volumes grow from between 20-25,000 a year between 1980 and 2010, to around
60,000 a year since 2016. But it has come at a cost – both Stuart and I spend a
great deal more of our lives running the scheme, and we have had to recruit
five new assistants to help meet demand. We are still operating at full capacity
and if we want to step back and retire (which we do) we must find somebody to
take on the central roles. That is easier said than done. I am sure other
Recording Schemes find themselves in a similar boat!
So, it is all very well making a call to arms for more
recording, but please remember that the whole of the biological recording
process is dependent upon a miniscule group of willing technical specialists (‘experts’).
That group is not expanding at the same rate as the capacity to generate data. Real
‘expertise’ only develops over many years and after careful analysis of the
full range of taxa within one’s subject group. Weeks, months, years of peering
down a microscope, comparing preserved specimens, thinking about better ways of
identifying species are required to be capable of providing the know-how to
ensure that datasets are reliable. These are not skills that can be replaced by
a computer (at least yet).
So, the real debate must be about how we meet the demand for
reliable data? How do we make the prospect of spending many hours a year
validating datasets and providing determinations a desirable thing to do? Most
people have partners and families who won’t thank them if they disappear off
for hours on end running a recording scheme. Many people with a passion for a
technical area won’t want to be bothered checking the umpteenth photograph of a
tricky fly, bee or beetle that they know will only be given a reliable
determination from a preserved specimen. Indeed, there is still outright
antipathy towards ‘citizen science’ amongst a not inconsiderable part of the
technically savvy.
Some ideas
We therefore need to make the science of photographic ID and
‘citizen science’ more attractive to people who are inclined to become ‘alpha
taxonomists’. I have droned on for a long while that we need to be thinking
about a new discipline of ‘live animal taxonomy’.
If I was freed up from the HRS, I would certainly want to
put the past ten years’ experience to good use and produce a very different
complete guide to Britain’s hoverflies – I have lots of ideas but no time. I
think there is wider scope for a Europe-wide project that might have been led
by a mixed team of German, Dutch, UK specialists. That would have been a viable
European project. Sadly, Brexit has blown that one out of the water – there is
no chance of UK funding for such projects and we would bring nothing to the
table other than our own willingness to participate – we would be totally
dependent upon European money and are soon to be on the outside.
The other big challenge is to look at the composition of
Recording Scheme organisation. If record flow increases, we must generate a
bigger circle of people involved in the various aspects of data management. Data
management is the big drudge job in its various forms, including active data
farming (from Facebook), data gathering (from independent recorders) and data
verification; plus, of course actually managing the database and importing data.
There are three areas where there has, however, been real progress.
Firstly, we have seen that Facebook groups are great media for mentoring basic
ID skills. I have been greatly impressed with the progress of several people on
the UK Hoverflies Facebook page – their participation certainly eases the
pressure on the ‘resident experts’ (Ian Andrews, Joan Childs, Geoff Wilkinson
and me).
Even more importantly, we have seen a substantial shift
towards group members maintaining their own spreadsheets. This is a significant
shift because it means that there is a growing group of recorders in whom we
have confidence and who have the confidence to make their own records. It has
vastly eased the burden on me – had this shift not happened I would have had to
pack up for my own sanity’s sake!
Finally, there is no shortage of data analysts. Various
University groups regularly make use of HRS and other opportunistic data and
there are also independent analysts and PhD students to whom we have supplied
data. But, for me, there is a fly in the ointment. When we took on the
Recording Scheme it was my hope that we (i.e. Stuart and I) would do a lot of
the analytical work and actually publish some ground-breaking work. Today, the
workload is such that the best we can do is to assemble data and pass it on to
someone else to do the real science. I’m not sure that is what I signed up for
and I certainly have not signed up to servicing the biological record
production industry!
So, some thought needs to go into making sure that the
question is asked ‘what makes a Recording Scheme organiser tick and how do we
make running a scheme attractive?’
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