Task 9

Locating species

There are a number of resources available to locate a species or determine its range. Here I use 2 different websites, nbnatlas.org and gbif.org, to generate species distribution maps for invertebrate, vertebrate and plant species.

To find records of the Blue Shieldbug (Zicrona caerulea) firstly I used the NBN atlas species search (NBN Trust, 2024). It generates a map of all the records which can be filtered if required. There is a 'spatial portal' that can be used for filtering maps, for example in the screenshot below I've coloured the points by decade, so that it is possible to see how old some of the records are. Older records could be filtered out if needed.

Invertebrate

Blue Shieldbug (Zicrona caerulea)

Searching in GBIF (GBIF, 2024), provides a global perspective on species occurrence. NBN Atlas is the UK node for GBIF, so data will flow across platforms.

These data can be filtered by Country or area, so we can view just the UK records to compare:

To find records of the Yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) using NBN atlas returns the map below. In this instance I have chosen to display the Ordnance Survey grids, and the map has defined 10km square grids to indicate where the records are. We can see from this that this species occurs predominantly to the south, with only a handful of records further north. 

Vertebrate

Yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis)

Searching in GBIF shows the global range of this species:

Searching for this rare (in Britain) orchid, using NBN atlas produces the map below, illustrating just how few places it has been recorded:

Plant

Military orchid (Orchis militaris)

However, for a global outlook, searching in GBIF shows the global range of this species indicating it is found across Europe and Asia:

Reflection

Both of these tools/datasets are very useful in producing species distribution maps. They have a range of filters that can be applied to ensure the data required are selected e.g. date of record, basis of record etc. GBIF provides a global perspective with data from NBN atlas feeding into it. There are options to download the data, with NBN atlas providing the option to export the map as an image file. I tried using this but I found this function too fiddly and couldn’t find all the options I wanted e.g. it didn’t seem possible to export with a legend for the points colour-coded by date/decade. It did, however, provide functionality to view records for multiple species on one map which may be of interest to see where ranges overlap.

For detailed analysis I would download the data, e.g. from GBIF as a .csv with co-ordinates, and import into a separate GIS program to create my own map. For a quick view the online tool/maps provide work well though.

References

National Biodiversity Network Trust (NBN Trust) (2024) Species search. Available at: https://species.nbnatlas.org/ (Accessed: 15 May 2024).

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (2024) Species search. Available at: https://www.gbif.org/species/search (Accessed: 15 May 2024).