Memorandum submitted by the National Federation
for Biological Recording
BACKGROUND
The National Federation for Biological Recording
(NFBR) is a membership society, established in 1987 to promote,
develop and represent biological recording in the UK. It is the
only such society in the UK and hosts annual conferences on a
range of topics relating to all aspects of biological recording.
NFBR has contributed to the formation of the Co-ordinating Commission
for Biological Recording and to the Commission's seminal report
in 1995, and subsequently to the establishment and development
of the National Biodiversity Network.
NFBR's membership is drawn from national biological
societies, regional and county-based biological records centres,
and individual active practitioners in biological recording.
Biological Recording is defined as: the collection,
collation, management, dissemination and interpretation of spatially
and temporally referenced information on the occurrence of biological
taxa, assemblages and habitats.
RESPONSES
NFBR is capable of responding, from a position
of particular knowledge, to parts of Questions 2, 7 and 8, all
of which are compound questions. This is not to say that other
numbered questions are not of interest to NFBR, but to comment
on them would draw mainly on experiential opinion rather than
practical knowledge.
QUESTION 2
What is the role of systematics and taxonomy and,
in particular, in what way do they contribute to research areas
such as biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and climate
change?
Basic taxonomic knowledge, underpinned by sound
and up-to-date hierarchies from systematic research, is fundamental
to understanding what taxonomic units being studied in such research.
The ability to accurately identify and name taxonomic units (eg
genera, species and sub-specific taxa) is central. But understanding
of systematic inter-relationships, even of well-known taxa, increases
awareness of inherent factors that may impact on the responses
of individual taxa to anthropogenic and natural processes. Hitherto,
much UK research in biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services
and climate change, and in particular conservation related research,
has been directed towards individual species. Thus species have
been considered almost in isolation from related species, or the
species assemblage and habitat within which they occur.
How important is this contribution and how is
it recognised in the funding process?
The need for basic taxonomic knowledge and studies
in systematics applies even in the UK where, despite numerous
and repeated assertions to the contrary, this baseline information
is still required for many taxa. For example, even in a group
as intensively studied as butterflies, a native species new to
the UK (Réal's Wood White) was discovered as recently as
2000 in Northern Ireland.
However, most taxonomic expertise relating to
UK species is now vested in voluntary organisations and non-professional
individuals rather than with the professional scientific community
of universities, museums and research institutions. Thus the majority
of UK taxonomic expertise is virtually unfunded, at least as far
as the purview of the House of Lords S & T Committee. This
does not provide for a sustainable future for taxonomy in the
UK. The present-day resource of UK expertise is merely a legacy
of greater levels of funding in the 1960s and 70s. Prior to the
1980s taxonomy and systematics had formed part of undergraduate
biological sciences courses at many UK universities, and at secondary
schools, basic taxonomic principles were part of O/GCSE and A
level syllabuses. Awareness of species used to begin at primary
school.
When so many of the issues in biodiversity conservation,
ecosystem services and climate change are supra-national or global,
the UK's traditional role and particular expertise in taxonomy
and systematics research must be recognised and supported at universities
and at national and other major museums.
How is systematics integrated in other areas of
research?
NFBR is unable to comment.
QUESTION 7
Does the way in which taxonomic data is collected,
managed and maintained best meet the needs of the user community?
One of the main issues is that most constituents
of the "user community" are poor at recognising that
they are either "users" or members of a "community"!
As a consequence it has been for the potential "providers"
to second guess what data may be required by an ill-defined "user
Community" and have had to do so with minimal or no funding.
For example many of those concerned with biological
recording have been aware, since the 1980s, of changes in the
range and abundance of species and assemblages, and changes to
habitats which appeared to relate, at least in part, to climatic
variables. This awareness prompted voluntary groups to advocate
the need to establish national surveillance and monitoring schemes,
and to maintain the few schemes that had been established earlier.
In most cases funding was refused or reduced to levels that delivered
only part of the necessary data. It was not until after 2000,
when the voluntarily managed schemes had begun to deliver incontrovertible
data, that governmental agencies began to recognise that such
organisations and schemes had a role to play in supplying data.
The exception to this criticism is birds, for which many important
monitoring projects, run by the voluntary sector, have been funded
by the conservation agencies. However, good the data for birds
may be, they can not, and should not, be used as proxy for most
other UK biota.
Particularly at a local level, for example a
county-based biological records centre, the challenge is to try
to influence the "user community" to ask for information
that is sensible and deliverable. Government guidance to local
authorities to apply a range of biodiversity indicators and to
seek data from "your local biological records centre"
assumes an ideal that rarely exists. Consultation about biodiversity
indicators and targets has been minimal at the local level, and
"your local biological records centre" is almost certainly
poorly resourced and largely dependent on the goodwill of volunteers
to supply data. The whole edifice is built on sand!
At regional and local levels, taxonomic expertise
is now almost exclusively vested in the voluntary community, such
as through local natural history societies, local records centres
and wildlife trusts. Local museums, which were a reliable ally
to local "naturalists" by providing access to collections,
literature and advice, are very rarely given resources to maintain
that role. See also Question 8.
There is also the inevitable pitfall of sectoral
separation. For example few professionals concerned with "pure"
taxonomy are able to inter-relate with field or behavioural ecologists
or biogeographers. Increasingly, taxonomic studies relate to molecular
levels. Relevant as they may be, these studies do not yet make
it possible for those who require taxonomic definitions, for the
practicalities of survey, surveillance or monitoring whole organisms,
to use these ever-more refined definitions of taxa. Also, understanding
of taxonomic units, such as species, cannot be achieved solely
by the study of specimens in isolation from their environment.
What is the state of local and national recording
schemes?
NFBR is aware of evidence supplied to the Committee
on behalf of the National Biodiversity Network, the Yorkshire
Naturalists Union and others in the local biological records centre
community. The evidence these organisations have provided describe
in more detail, and from better first-hand knowledge, responses
to this question.
NFBR would like to reinforce the point that
most taxonomic knowledge (and much research), relating to UK taxa,
is almost wholly dependent on the voluntary sector, without significant
public funding. Even the publication of taxonomic guides, other
than a small number of commercial publications for popular groups,
is dependent on voluntary organisations, membership societies
and registered charities, such as the Royal Entomological Society
and the Field Studies Council.
QUESTION 8
What is the role of major regional museums and
collections?
It is important to distinguish between major
regional/national museums, such as those at Cardiff, Liverpool,
Edinburgh and Belfast and possibly also Glasgow, Manchester and
Oxford, and the truly local museums such as those at Newcastle
upon Tyne, Sheffield, Norwich, Reading, Exeter and Bristol. The
first four are still custodians of some national and international
taxonomic expertise and, to a variable extent, also training.
Their collections are extensive and generally accessible for use,
with at least some curatorial staff. Glasgow (Kelvingrove), Manchester
(University) and Oxford (Natural History) also have extensive
collections, but fewer curatorial staff and little scope for taxonomic
research other than by affiliated specialists working in a voluntary
capacity. Truly local museums, such as those listed (which are
among the largest), have extensive and often important collections,
few curatorial staff and usually no role in taxonomic studies
or taxonomic training other than through specially funded outreach
projects aimed at schools. Many smaller local museums, although
they may have good, even important collections, often have no
specialist trained curatorial staff.
How are taxonomic collections curated and funded?
NFBR considers the maintenance and proper curation
of reference and voucher collections to be of extreme importance,
both for validation of biological records and for the training
of new generations of naturalist specialists and taxonomists.
Such collections would be of greatest value when held at local
museums, but most museums have difficulties in accepting "working"
collections. Even if they are able to accept them and house them
adequately, long-term maintenance, curation and provision of access
cannot be guaranteed. Large regional and national museums may,
in theory, be able to provide a better service, except with regard
to access at a local level.
2 February 2008
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