Memorandum submitted by Mr Bill Ely
I operate the Rotherham Biological Records Centre,
I am an entomologist and I am the Yorkshire Naturalists Union's
recorder for Parasitic Hymenoptera. My concerns stem from these
roles and my position as a consumer of taxonomic research on the
insects of the UK.
Point 1: from my point of view, systematic research
(as evidenced by the existence of guides/keys to British insects)
is generally good.
While collecting, recording and identifying
our local entomofauna I find that the key works on the British
fauna are good for bugs, beetles and the smaller groups such as
mayflies, dragonflies and lacewings. I have enough literature
to cope with the flies but some of this is culled from European
works and is often quite old. There is a need to complete the
coverage of the British flies and bring it up to date. Among the
Hymenoptera the sawflies and Aculeates (bees, wasps and ants)
are generally well-provided for, though a guide to solitary bees
is badly needed. Information on this group has been published
in a variety of journals going back to the 1920's but an up-to-date
work is necessary. The main gap from my point of view is in the
Parasitic Hymenoptera, a large group of families containing c5,000
UK species. A few guides to the British fauna exist (in English)
but there are large gaps where nothing has been published over
the last 50 years. While these insects may be considered a low
priority (because of the small number of individuals who take
an interest in them) they form a significant part of our biodiversity,
they impact on many other invertebrate groups, their value in
biological control is very clear and, as "top predators",
and they have potential value as indicators of site quality.
I suggest that it would be useful to draw up
a list of families (and, where appropriate, subfamilies) of the
UK fauna and flora with a note of the date when guides/keys in
English were last published. Perhaps it would be useful to note
where guides have been published to particular genera where these
post-date the family keys. This would show up the gaps and inform
decisions regarding funding priorities.
There is widely-recognised need to encourage
more naturalists to take up the study and recording of our wildlife,
and the existence of readily-available keys in English, is central
to that encouragement.
In a world where the insects are changing in
response to changing climate the keys should be to western Europe
rather than just the UK biota, so that additions such as the Lesser
Emperor Dragonfly (which arrived in England about ten years ago
and has now reached South Yorkshire) can be recognised.
The main barrier to filling the gaps is a lack
of workers in the neglected groups.
Point 5: Some of the gaps in UK literature are
filled by workers in other countries. Klaus Horstmann in Germany,
for example, is a prolific worker in the Ichneumonidae. Some of
his work has been translated into English (and I am fortunate
that I had access to a translation service at Doncaster Museum
which achieved much of that work) but it would be useful to provide
funding for his (and other workers') output to be translated into
English and then made available to the rest of us. As the fauna
and flora of the UK are subsets of the European fauna and flora
some link (other than personal contacts) would be useful.
Point 7: As a biological recorder I have a particular
interest in taxonomic data. The coverage of local records centres
(LRCs) across the UK is patchy, as is the distribution of records.
Both tend to be concentrated in urban centres while the most biodivers
areas are less well served. This, of course, reflects local funding
and staff resources for the LRCs and numbers of recorders for
the records. There are also discrepancies within the records—about
half of the 1.2 million records in Rotherham BRC's databank are
bird records and this reflects the overwhelming concentration
of bird records nationally. It does not provide an objective basis
for biodiversity studies.
Local recording schemes are patchy and rely
upon the skill and enthusiasm of individuals. The fact that there
is almost no reliable basis for such schemes is not really an
issue until the situation where no-one steps forward to take up
the burden. When that occurs there is a danger of the accumulated
data being lost. Local recorders are being encouraged to deposit
a copy of their records with a LRC, but this has its own problems.
Not all LRCs have secure funding and some are operated by charities.
They may be at risk in the future. Some recorders may welcome
the security of a back-up to their records
but may not wish the LRC to be able to use them (bizarre
but true). If the LRC takes on this role it is at cost to its
core business, which cannot be right.
Point 8: It is not only the "major"
museums which have a role here. For our LRC it is the local museum
which houses our voucher/reference collection. In order to encourage
young people to take up the study of the less popular groups of
fauna and flora, it is necessary for adequate reference collections
to be available locally. They should not have to travel tens or
hundreds of miles to do this. A joint voucher/reference collection
meets both needs.
Point 9: As far as the Parasitic Hymenoptera
is concerned, I have tried to find taxonomic information on the
Internet with minimal success. Perhaps understandably, editors
only put the titles of papers on the web rather than the full
text. Therefore, trying to find the characters for a particular
species is usually a waste of time. I have found copious information
on museum specimens around the world and lists from different
areas but very little of taxonomic use.
Point 12: The number of taxonomists actively
working on the Parasitic Hymenoptera in the UK can probably be
counted on the fingers of one hand and they are either retired
or have curatorial duties as well.
Their numbers are quite inadequate to deal with the
task facing them. Some method of encouraging team-work involving
a number of taxonomists (perhaps investigating the parasite loads
of particular host groups, as happens at Leiden University) would
be a way forward.
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