Debating How an LRC Should Handle Non-Species Records

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Tom
Posts: 65
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2008 9:50 am

Debating How an LRC Should Handle Non-Species Records

Post by Tom »

An important meeting took place on Tuesday 9th September at Record in Chester. The meeting was to discuss how Record should deal with records of just genus or family, rather than records which have been determined all the way to species level.

Although, on the face of it, this may sound like a dry, boring and possibly even nerdy topic, it is a very important one. On the one hand we do not want to lose potentially valuable data but on the other hand we want to encourage people to record as accurately as possible.

Thanks to Ian Wallace of Liverpool Museums for bringing the topic to the fore, and thanks also to Vernon Hockley, one of our Trustees, for chairing the debate. The minutes of this meeting will be made available soon.

Feel free to have your say and post your message here.

Tom Hunt - Enquiries Officer, Record
Tom Hunt, Record Enquiries Officer
John_Bratton
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2008 4:05 pm

Re: Debating How an LRC Should Handle Non-Species Records

Post by John_Bratton »

Hello. I read your article in NBN News about recording higher taxa, and you asked for comments. Recording higher taxa has some similarity to negative records, in that both are useful if done sparingly but would make a nonsense of recording if carried out thoughtlessly. Apart from the issue of difficult species pairs, there are a number of larger groups I think it is worth recording. These tell us something about site quality and/or are unusual enough that a specialist may want to visit their site and carry out a proper identification. Sphagnum is included on the grounds of it being an indicator of unimproved vegetation holding the promise of other interesting species being present. Here is my list:

Freshwater sponges
Brown Hydra
Freshwater Bryozoa
Large freshwater mussels, Anodonta, Unio and Margaritifera
Scorpions
Crayfish
Well shrimps (blind subterranean Amphipoda)
Fairy shrimps, Anostraca
Hairworms, Nematomorpha
Spongeflies, Sisyridae
Snakeflies, Rhaphidioptera
The saproxylic craneflies in the Ctenophorinae (Ctenophora, Dictenidia and Tanyptera)
Bot flies, Oestridae
Leaf-mines when on rare plants
Galls when on rare plants
Tiger beetles, Cicindelidae
Aquatic weevils
Bats (roosts)
Waxcaps, or all CHEG fungi, preferably with an estimated number of species
Rust fungi when on rare plants
Stoneworts, Charophyta
Terrestrial Riccia spp.
Sphagnum spp.
Anthocerotae
Clubmosses
Filmy ferns
Broomrapes, Orobanche spp.


I don't claim that this is the definitive list. They are just the groups I would record even if I couldn't identify them to species; or in some cases that I hope others would record so that I might go and check on them.

John Bratton, 18 New Street, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, LL59 5HN
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