National Earthworm Recording Scheme Records (UK)

Earthworm Society of Britain

Description

This dataset includes all earthworm records submitted to the National Earthworm Recording Scheme (UK) since launch in 2014 through to 2022. This includes using a variety of sampling methods and records produced by the Earthworm Society of Britain, volunteer biological recorders and biodiversity sector organisations.

The National Earthworm Recording Scheme (UK) was launched by the Earthworm Society of Britain in 2014 and has been actively generating and collating earthworm records since then, though the Earthworm Society of Britain was formed in 2009 and has been working with the biological recording community since then. As a result, most of the records in this dataset range are from 2009-2022, though some records date back as far as 1974.

Full details of the National Earthworm Recording Scheme can be found on the Earthworm Society of Britain website: http://earthwormsoc.org.uk

Geographic Description

Records ranged across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Distributional bias exists where active recorders are present and where ESB recording events were held. Records were provided at varying degrees of resolution (from 1m squares up to 1km squares). All records were submitted to the NBN Atlas at full resolution with no access constraints.

Data quality

All records are a minimum of 'Considered correct' and those that have been verified from a photo or a voucher specimen include the name of the verifier and are 'Correct'. Records are only accepted from approved recorders or where the species identification can be verified from a photo or a voucher specimen. The data has not been checked using NBN Record Cleaner. The range of each of the British earthworm species is not currently known. Eisenia fetida has been used as an aggregate species for both Eisenia fetida and Eisenia andrei due to the difficulties associated with reliably separating these two species.

Methods

Records result from a range of data capture methods (and this is recorded in the 'Method' field).

Citation

Brown, K. D. (2023) National Earthworm Recording Scheme (UK). Earthworm Society of Britain. Occurrence dataset

Rights

CC-BY (c) Earthworm Society of Britain and database right

Digitised records