National Biodiversity Data Centre Annual Report 2012 Report to the Heritage Council NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 1 Annual 03/09/2013 09:57 Report 2012 2 NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 2 03/09/2013 09:57 Contents 3 Chairman’s statement 5 Introduction 6 Key achievements in 2012 7 Publications related to the work of the Data Centre 24 Management Board 24 Staff & contract management 25 Collaborations and data providers 26 Financial statement 27 The National Biodiversity Data Centre is an initiative of the Heritage Council and is funded by the Heritage Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 3 03/09/2013 09:57 4 NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 4 03/09/2013 09:57 Chairman's Statement 5 Dr. Mary Kelly-Quinn, Chair The year 2012 marked an important point in European vegetation initiatives and the early the history of the Data Centre, a time to refl ect warning and rapid response system for invasive on the achievements of the Centre since its species, ensuring that Ireland is part of a wider establishment and a time to articulate a vision Europe and can contribute to and benefi t from for its future having successfully secured shared knowledge and expertise. funding for a new fi ve year programme. That vision and associated workplan have been As the databases grow the Data Centre works communicated in a recently launched with data providers and other partners to strategic plan. prioritise data analysis to ensure that the maximum use can be made of the data for the Management and display of biodiversity data aforementioned needs. Production of ‘Red remained the core responsibility of the Data lists’ is an example of one important analysis Centre in 2012 with 2,283,067 observations of exercise. The Centre continued to work closely 13,481 species on the system by the end of the with its partners in the production of Red Lists year, 74,075 of these are records of Ireland’s in 2012. Progress has been made with Red Lists protected species. There was a steady fl ow of on seaweeds, vascular plants and macro-moths. new records throughout the year from a wide Ireland’s Red List No. 7: Mayfl ies was completed variety of sources and we are most grateful and published by NPWS in 2012, based on the for the continued support of a large cohort data contained in the Mayfl y (Ephemeroptera) of recorders. Interestingly some parts of the of Ireland database. country have little or no recording activity (e.g. Monaghan) and might make interesting While the Data Centre’s databases are recording grounds for anyone with some impressively large it is important that they spare time. However, the Data Centre was not continue to be populated with new data to established to simply amass species records facilitate analyses of changes in our species but more importantly it works to mobilise and their habitats. Strengthening the recording data to those who require it for planning, base is a key objective of the Centre. Another management, conservation, research and successful series of identifi cation works shops education. This also represents signifi cant were run in 2012. The Irish Butterfl y Monitoring added value for the datasets, particularly where Scheme, a citizen science project, which started data have been derived from projects funded with only six transects in 2007 has now grown by the national research programmes. In 2012 to over 150 transects across the country and is we saw continued expansion in the use of the generating valuable data for use in Ireland and Centre’s data visualisation maps by planners at European level. This report documents the and researchers. The staff of the Data Centre extent of other activities in this area. worked closely with a variety of partners, organisations and individuals to facilitate data Finally, I would like to thank and congratulate usage. For example the Data Centre provided the Data Centre’s Director and staff on yet the Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT), Ireland with another highly productive year and wish them web services to utilise dynamic distribution every success on they embark on an ambitious, maps of mammals from Biodiversity Maps. new, fi ve-year work programme. It continued to contribute information to NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 5 03/09/2013 09:57 6 Introduction 2012 saw the beginning of a new phase of the of increased number and quality of records. National Biodiversity Data Centre. The Heritage This includes many new records of Ireland’s Council, working with the Chair Dr. Mary Kelly- protected species, particularly those protected Quinn and the Management Board, successfully under the EU Habitats and Birds Directives. secured funding for and agreed a new five year service-level agreement for the running of the The National Vegetation Database has been Data Centre following a procurement process. created. This has potential to become a key This agreement secures the future of the Data database for tracking and assessing fine-level, Centre and lays the foundation for its further land-use change in the Irish countryside. expansion in the years ahead. There is very good national coordination of initiatives on invasive species, much of this The role of the Data Centre operates within underpinned by the data management provided the context of Ireland’s National Biodiversity by the National Invasive Species Database Plan – Actions for Biodiversity 2011-2016, and and information portal. The Bumblebee and contributes to its effective implementation. Butterfly Monitoring Schemes are providing The creation of Biodiversity Maps, a national high quality data to track changes to populations platform for the sharing and presentation of of important insect groups, and the benefits of biodiversity data provides the infrastructure both these schemes are becoming evident. The to assist mainstreaming of biodiversity in the Atlas of Mammals in Ireland 2010-2015 has decision making process. Biodiversity Maps has seen significant generation of new data on the grown to now include 2,283,067 observations of distribution of Irish mammals with over 10,000 13,481 species. This system is used by 10 state- sightings submitted by citizen scientists to agencies, 15 key non-governmental organisations the database. and most national experts managing digital databases as a platform for sharing data and The key achievements outlined in this Annual making those data more widely available. Report demonstrate the strategic importance of the Data Centre and its work programme. Extensive support has been provided to the The Data Centre has established itself as a citizen science community. The comprehensive centre of excellence, providing a valuable and programme of training workshops, the highly efficient service to the biodiversity and development of an on-line data submission the wider resource management, planning and form and active engagement with the recording education sectors. community has seen a strengthened citizen science community resulting is the generation NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 6 03/09/2013 09:57 Key Achievements in 2012 7 1. Shared information system for biodiversity 1 A key action of the National Biodiversity Plan the national database comprises 2,283,067 is to ‘...develop a shared information system for observations of 13,481 species from 93 datasets biodiversity which makes date freely available (Table 1). to all interested users, streamlines reporting and supports policy evaluation and development at The system manages biodiversity data from national, regional and global levels’. across the islands of Ireland and its marine waters, but the majority of records relate to the During 2012 the Data Centre has continued island of Ireland. Concentrations of records to develop this shared information system for occur in Dublin, Wicklow, Waterford, west Cork, biodiversity and greatly increase the amount Kerry, Clare, Galway, Sligo, Leitrim and most of of data contained in the National Biodiversity Northern Ireland. This pattern is infl uenced by Database and made freely available through the areas of extensive semi-natural habitats and the data portal Biodiversity Maps:http://maps. recording effort (Figure 1). biodiversityireland.ie. Over the year, 300,000 new records have been added to the database, including some records of 1,300 new species. As of the end of 2012, Figure 1: Distribution of records contained in the National Biodiversity Database at end of 2012. The colours show the range from low (Blue) to high (Red) of 388 to 37,561 records per 10km square. NBDC-Compass Annual Report 2013.indd 7 03/09/2013 09:57 8 Plants Dataset provider Flora of County Waterford Paul Green Flora of County Clare Stephen Ward BSBIS tetrad data for Ireland Botanical Society of the British Isles Heritage Trees of Ireland Tree Council of Ireland Hedgerow Survey of Ireland The Heritage Council Irish Crop Wild Relatives Database National Biodiversity Data Centre On-line Atlas of Vascular Plant 2012 -2020 National Biodiversity Data Centre Table 1: Mammals The key datasets Badger and Habitat Survey of Ireland National Parks and Wildlife Service contained in National Bat Database Bat Conservation Ireland the National Hare Survey of Ireland 2006/07 National Parks and Wildlife Service Biodiversity Irish National Badger Sett Database Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Database Irish Squirrel Survey 2007 COFORD at end of 2012 NPWS Pine Marten Database Na t i o n a l Pa r k s a n d W i l d l i f e