Scottish Biodiversity List)
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PRODUCTION OF THE LIST OF SPECIES AND HABITATS CONSIDERED TO BE OF PRINCIPAL IMPORTANCE FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY IN SCOTLAND (THE SCOTTISH BIODIVERSITY LIST) PART 2 – TECHNICAL REPORT November 2005 PRODUCTION OF THE LIST OF SPECIES AND HABITATS CONSIDERED TO BE OF PRINCIPAL IMPORTANCE FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY IN SCOTLAND (THE SCOTTISH BIODIVERSITY LIST) PART 2 – TECHNICAL REPORT Final Report This report has been checked in accordance with Scott Wilson’s Quality Assurance Procedure. Issue Report Date Prepared by Reviewed by Approved for Issue No. Status 1 Final 29/11/2005 Karen Blake Stephanie Peay Nigel Hackett Scott Wilson 23 Chester Street Edinburgh EH3 7ET Tel: +44 (0)131 225 1230 Fax: +44 (0)131 225 5582 Web: www.scottwilson.com Scottish Biodiversity List Part 2 Technical Report CONTENTS 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................1 1.1 Organisation of the listing process 1 1.2 Use of proforma spreadsheets 2 1.3 Criteria used 2 1.4 Validity of criteria 4 2 Application of Social criterion ...............................................................................................5 2.1 Introduction 5 2.2 Definition of importance 6 2.3 Methodology 6 2.4 Results 7 2.5 Animals important to the Scottish Population 8 2.6 Plants important to the Scottish Population 11 2.7 Habitats important to the Scottish Population 13 2.8 Species and habitats important for conservation purposes 15 2.9 Interpretation of results 16 2.10 Species / habitats also meeting scientific criteria 18 2.11 Species / habitats meeting only the social criteria 18 2.12 Review process 18 3 Application of Criteria for Terrestrial and Freshwater Species 19 3.1 Explanation of Criteria 19 3.2 Application of the criteria 19 3.3 Terrestrial Mammals 20 3.4 Herpetofauna 22 3.5 Birds 24 3.6 Invertebrates 28 3.7 Fish 44 3.8 Vascular Plants 46 3.9 Bryophytes 56 3.10 Charophytes 63 3.11 Fungi 65 3.12 Lichens 72 Scottish Biodiversity List Part 2 Technical Report 3.13 Freshwater Algae 86 4 Application of Criteria for Terrestrial and Freshwater Habitats 94 4.1 Summary of Criteria for terrestrial and freshwater habitats 94 4.2 Terrestrial and Freshwater Habitats 94 5 Application of Criteria for Marine Species and Habitats 100 5.1 Explanation of Criteria 100 5.2 Marine Species 100 5.3 Marine Habitats 106 6 Appendices 112 6.1 Appendix 2A – Questionnaire used in social survey 112 6.2 Appendix 2B – Scottish Biodiversity List of terrestrial and freshwater species 112 6.3 Appendix 2C – Scottish Biodiversity List of terrestrial and freshwater habitats 112 6.4 Appendix 2D – Scottish Biodiversity List of marine species and habitats 112 6.5 Appendix 2E – Scottish Biodiversity List of data deficient species and habitats 112 6.6 Appendix 2F - Scottish Biodiversity List of extinct species and habitats 112 6.7Appendix 2G – Report on the Selection of Vascular Plants for the Scottish Biodiversity List 112 Scottish Biodiversity List Part 2 Technical Report 1 Introduction This technical report comprises Section 2 of the Scottish Biodiversity List project. It explains the application of the criteria, provides details about the species and habitats that have been included on the Scottish Biodiversity List (including which criteria were met) broken down by taxonomic group, and includes lists of species and habitats on the Data Deficient and Extinct Lists. For each taxonomic group, information is provided on the contributors, consultees, species that made the list, and comments applicable to the group. General comments are also provided in a separate section, where these were more widely applicable. The Technical Report also includes electronic versions of Excel spreadsheets, which comprise The Scottish Biodiversity Lists for : Terrestrial and Freshwater Species Terrestrial and Freshwater Habitats Marine Species and Habitats List of Data Deficient Species and Habitats List of Extinct Species and Habitats In addition, there are appendices of the social survey questionnaire, and a report on issues relating to the application of the criteria to the selection of the vascular plant species for the list. 1.1 Organisation of the listing process The timescale for the production of the Scottish Biodiversity List from the criteria developed during Phase 1 of the Project was 16 weeks. Given the huge size of the task, and the number of species and habitats to be evaluated, the consultants chose to use the same specialists who were involved with the development of the criteria, to coordinate the application of the criteria to the taxonomic groups. Because of their background knowledge of the criteria, it was felt that this would help to reduce the introductory phase of the project. Several of the specialist coordinators on the team were not based in Scotland, and it was not possible for them to contact every specialist for every group in Scotland to assist with the production of the list. The approach to the use of additional contributors was that the specialist coordinators, with their knowledge of their groups, would contact people whom they considered appropriate to provide input to the list, either formally or informally. For some groups, such as vascular plants and fungi, the coordinator compiled the list themselves, and then consulted other specialists to achieve consensus on the proposed list. In other groups, such as marine and terrestrial invetebrates, several individuals were responsible for compiling different species groups. As an additional source of assistance, at the start of the project, SNH’s data acquisition unit wrote to everyone who holds data that are on the National Biodiversity Network (NBN), to request permission for Scott Wilson and their specialists to have access to any relevant data. The response to this request was very poor, although input to the Scottish Biodiversity List was received for dragonflies and aquatic beetles through this route. November 2005 1 Scottish Biodiversity List Part 2 Technical Report 1.2 Use of proforma spreadsheets In order to assist with standardisation of input across the groups, and output of the final Scottish Biodiversity List, a standard proforma was developed for contributors to complete for their taxonomic group. The format of the proforma was agreed at the meeting of the Steering Group in late July 2005.The excel proforma were developed to ensure standard answers were received within columns where appropriate, for example, “yes”, “no”, “unknown”, “not appropriate”. This was designed to reduce the time required to edit the completed sheets. The proforma was adapted from the one used by JNCC to collect information at the UK level, which is pre-coded with taxon keys from the Natural History Museum Species Directory. A positive benefit of using taxon key codes, is that these are the same as are used on the NBN Gateway, and therefore facilitated the development of a presentation mechanism which will allow the interrogation of the Scottish list with links to the NBN. As a starting point, SNH were approached for a list of species occurring in Scotland. However, this list is still under development, and no Scottish list was available upon which to base the proforma spreadsheets. Scott Wilson therefore approached the JNCC to provide a list of UK species. The JNCC created a spreadsheet from the species directory, listing all species with their taxon reference codes. This spreadsheet comprised more than 60,000 records, which was then subdivided into broader taxonomic groups for distribution to specialist coordinators. This spreadsheet was missing several species groups (mostly aquatic) and contained some aquatic and marine species coded as terrestrial invertebrates. JNCC provided additional information to help solve these problems, although there was some cost in terms of time, particularly in the extraction of aquatic groups, as the database system did not have a specific aquatic category. As the spreadsheets were derived from the full UK species list they were sometimes large. For this reason, some specialists therefore chose to use alternative data sources to ‘weed’ the list to include only those species they considered relevant. Specialists sometimes also found it easier to supply information to Scott Wilson in document format, rather than using the spreadsheet proformas. This data was transposed by Scott Wilson to the relevant spreadsheets. 1.3 Criteria used This section explains how the individual criteria were applied, and any issues that were reported by the specialists when applying the criteria. Criteria were separate and different for three different groups, namely terrestrial and freshwater species, terrestrial and freshwater habitats, and marine species and habitats. The criteria are discussed in relation to each group in the sections below. 1.3.1 Exclusion criteria The first two criteria on the spreadsheet related to the exclusion of species which were introduced or escaped (unless they were of known conservation importance e.g. white-clawed crayfish, and sand lizard), and exclusion of species for which there were insufficient data to apply the scientific criteria. Exclusion on the basis of lack of information was deemed to relate only to information on species population and decline, as the first scientific criteria (UK BAP Prioirty) could be applied in all cases. The exclusion criteria applied to all groups. 1.3.2 UK BAP All three groups also had a criterion relating to the inclusion of a species or habitat on the UK BAP. If a species is a UK BAP species on the current list, it is on the Scottish Biodiversity List. November 2005 2 Scottish Biodiversity List Part 2 Technical Report This was the least problematic criterion for the specialists to apply, although it was important to note that species had to be on the existing BAP list, and not include species that have been proposed for the UK list that is currently under development. 1.3.3 International obligation For terrestrial and freshwater species and habitats, there was a criterion relating to international obligations.