Edited by Gareth Harris WSBRC Biological Records Officer February 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction, Gareth Harris .............................................................................................................................................. 3 WSBRC Update, Purgle Linham ........................................................................................................................................ 4 County Recorders’ Annual Reports .................................................................................................................................. 7 Amphibians and Reptiles, Gemma Harding .................................................................................................... 7 Bats, Gareth Harris .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Diptera, Anthony Bainbridge ........................................................................................................................ 10 Higher Plants, Sharon Pilkington ................................................................................................................... 11 Macrolepidoptera, Dave Brotheridge ........................................................................................................... 13 Mammals (excl. bats), Gareth Harris ............................................................................................................ 13 Microlepidoptera, Michael Smith ................................................................................................................. 16 Odonata, Steve Covey ................................................................................................................................... 17 Sawflies, K. John Grearson ............................................................................................................................ 19 Geology, Isobel Geddes ................................................................................................................................ 20 This report and any additional reports not included here can be downloaded from the WSBRC website via the link - http://bit.ly/countyrecorders Front Cover: Roosting lesser horseshoe bats, Rhinolophus hipposideros © Gareth Harris, Mat-grass Fescue, Vulpia unilateralis © Sharon Pilkington and Harvest mouse nest, Micromys minutus © Gareth Harris 2 INTRODUCTION, GARETH HARRIS I am delighted to present the 2016 annual report of Wiltshire’s county recorders, which once again highlights the breadth of biological recording activity in Wiltshire and the committed experts undertaking and coordinating such work. Thank you to you all, and your respective groups, for all your time and effort in 2016. And not only for the core recording activities. We are immensely grateful for the time and energy expended by the county recorders in collating data and verifying datasets that you receive – your efforts ensure a smoother data flow in the county. As we near the 2 millionth record in WSBRC we can reflect on how not so long ago we passed the 1 million record milestone – the recent acceleration in recording effort and in data sharing is clearly bearing fruit. However, the greatest pressures are perhaps most evident in verification, with the team of verifiers increasingly feeling a growing burden. The proliferation in recording tools, including those online such as Living Record and iRecord, ensures that the burden upon county recorders and local environmental record centres increases not only in terms of greater volumes of data to use and manipulate, but in increasing volumes of data requiring expert verification. A lack of verifiers willing to adopt resources such as Living Record places additional burden upon the LERCs, requiring us to manually access and download data and share with verifiers to ensure they may be verified and used – doing so incurs considerable time, a luxury that increasingly under-funded LERCs can no longer afford. Pragmatically, going forwards, we will likely encourage use of iRecord for more obscure/under-recorded taxa, since iRecord is at least favoured by many of the national verifiers. It is of paramount importance that records submitted are verified and used by LERCs as soon as is practically possible – it is therefore not acceptable for records to languish unverified for months and years, simply for wont of a willing verifier. In future, once guidance is available WSBRC will make greater effort each year to access data from iRecord. Furthermore, in doing so, we can access many of the datasets generated by the national recording schemes. This of course has ramifications upon data flow elsewhere in the county and so we will discuss these implications with those affected in the near future. For example, we may be able to access data from iRecord more efficiently on behalf of you all, disseminating to each of you, than for you all to access these data individually. It is impossible not to be aware that politically, times are changing. And this is felt not only in the fear that our environmental legislation may be weakened and diluted, but is also felt as funding and resources continue to dwindle. And as they dwindle, no replacement funds are yet apparent. And this is why we need you, your ongoing support and for you to act as our advocates. Imagine Wiltshire without a county biological records centre – how will your data be used to safeguard habitats and species, to inform reserve management or development schemes or policy frameworks? How will data relating to sensitive species and sites be stored and safeguarded, to prevent disclosure to the wrong people whilst ensuring it informs the right people? We all do what we do because we care passionately about our precious natural environment in Wiltshire. And right now, WSBRC needs you to care about us too. Gareth Harris MCIEEM March 2017 3 WSBRC UPDATE, PURGLE LINHAM Following Gareth’s introduction I would once again wish to echo his thanks to all our data suppliers. We feel particularly grateful that so many of you have been happy to submit records to us in a more standardised way which makes such a difference to the speed with which we can mobilise and share your information. Our work is not just about numbers of records, it’s about the context and quality, and the quality of the data we receive gets higher each year, in terms of detail, accuracy and currency. This makes a huge difference in terms of how much it is taken into account, particularly in relation to future development work, which continue to run apace here in Wiltshire. Records As at the end of February 2017 our database holdings were 1,910,794 species records. We reached one million records at the beginning of 2012 after a concerted effort by all personnel to focus on mobilising as much of the data we held as possible. As a consequence of this effort we developed more streamlined processes for handling and checking data to improve its quality and consistency and enable us to mobilise records for use within a shorter timeframe. In the last five years we have maintained that trajectory and we now hold just under two million records within our database. Over 200,000 records have been added so far in the 2016-17 reporting period (April 2016 –March 2017). To give an idea of where the increases in records have been over the last five years, the table below shows the number of species observations reported in our Recorder 6 database in 2009, 2012 and 2017 for each main taxonomic group. There have been some tremendous increases in records held for several key species groups such as birds, mammals and moths which are down to improved data exchange and support from County Recorders, County verifiers and local recording groups. Gathering data from consultancy reports, monitoring projects and other work has helped supply numbers of other taxa such as amphibians and reptiles and crustacea. More generally use of Living Record and other online recording tools has helped to ensure a steady flow of data across a wide range of taxa, even where a local verifier isn’t available. Alongside this we now receive the majority of records in electronic formats, predominantly in Excel, and often in standardised formats such as our standard recording form. 4 Records Held By Taxa Increase in Increase in No. records No. records No. records % Increase Since % Increase Since Taxon group records 2009-records 2012- 2009 2012 2017 2009 2012 2017 2017 slime mould 69 1,134 1,322 1,253 188 94.78% 14.22% fungoid - 70 95 95 25 100.00% 26.32% fungus 5,107 54,454 66,279 61,172 11,825 92.29% 17.84% lichen 4,679 8,525 16,044 11,365 7,519 70.84% 46.86% alga 16 16 18 2 2 11.11% 11.11% chromist - - 45 45 45 100.00% 100.00% stonewort 21 127 304 283 177 93.09% 58.22% liverwort 1,325 2,090 2,834 1,509 744 53.25% 26.25% moss 10,553 16,232 20,948 10,395 4,716 49.62% 22.51% clubmoss 2 51 74 72 23 97.30% 31.08% horsetail 1,292 1,517 2,603 1,311 1,086 50.36% 41.72% fern 10,312 12,309 14,178 3,866 1,869 27.27% 13.18% conifer 6,237 8,101 8,184 1,947 83 23.79% 1.01% ginkgo 1 19 52 51 33 98.08% 63.46% flowering plant 439,826 576,804 852,020 412,194 275,216 48.38% 32.30% flatworm (Turbellaria) 72 96 195 123 99 63.08% 50.77% roundworm (Nematoda) - 1 1 1 - 100.00% 0.00% hairworm (Nematomorpha) - 1 9 9 8 100.00% 88.89% mollusc 1,755 2,158 3,577 1,822 1,419 50.94% 39.67% annelid 285 399 713 428 314 60.03% 44.04% acarine (Acari) 6 18 62 56 44 90.32% 70.97% spider (Araneae) 4,804 10,129 10,420