Collembola Recording Scheme

Biological Records Centre

Description

The Collembola dataset contains 359 species, records collected between 1808 - 2008, covering Great Britain and Ireland. It contains approximately 10,000 records.

Geographic Description

This dataset covers the whole of the UK and Ireland, with the inevitable surveyor bias that remote regions are under-represented. All records are accurate only to within 10km, although the recorder may be able to supply more precise coordinates on request for some records.

Purpose

Records are collated in order to add to knowledge of this group, including distribution, population trends, autecology and phenology. In addition, the scheme works with all contributing recorders to raise the profile of the species group and its conservation. Sharing the data via NBN helps achieve these aims.

Data quality

The quality of data capture is inevitably variable, but the limiting factor remains our understanding of the underlying taxonomy. In particular there remains extensive disagreement about the names to be given to colour varieties (eg <i>Dicyrtomina ornate/saundersi</i>, <i>Isotomurus palustris/unifasciatus</i>, <i>Entomobrya nivalis/intermedia</i>) and to species based on Pseudocelli in the onychiurids. Steve Hopkin was a 'lumper', and was probably unduly dismissive of colour pattern species, leaving several cases where it is quite unclear which name to associate with a given record. The limited genetic evidence available suggests that colour pattern species are good, but pseudo-ocelli based species are unsound. The entries will be updated where possible as new taxonomic data come in, but some literature records must remain as dubious. Users are referred to the UK Collembola pages for discussion of individual taxonomic questions.

Methods

The database was initially compiled by the late Steve Hopkin from a thorough search of UK literature records and specimens preserved on slides or in spirit (mainly in the NHML). The database contains a code indicating whether the record is literature only or has been validated by inspection of a preserved sample. Most springtails are collected by behavioural techniques (Tullgren funnels), with a few aspirated collections, but the exact collection method is not recorded in this database. A small but rapidly increasing source of records come from online photographs using macro-photography, subject to the criteria that the photograph is geo-referenced, dated, and the identify of the springtail is clear from the image.

Citation

Biological Records Centre ([Insert download year]). Collembola Recording Scheme. Occurrence dataset on the NBN Atlas

Rights

CC-BY

Digitised records