Spring 2024 Newsletter
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Sightings of the mantis shrimp, Rissoides desmaresti, are scarce but a Brixham based fisherman, Luke Tanner, reported not one but two this month!
Rissoides desmaresti is usually found in the Mediterranean but also sometimes found along the Atlantic coast of Europe, reaching upwards to southern British waters. As a burrowing shrimp they create a burrow system in the sediments from the lower shore down to 15 to 50 metres deep.
They reach lengths of around 10 cm long, have an elongated body with a small shield shaped carapace and large claws, characteristically mantis-like for capturing prey! The five spines along the dactylus of the raptorial claw distinguishes them from our only other British mantis shrimp Platysquilla Eusebia.
Helen Bostock, Senior Wildlife Specialist at the Royal Horticultural Society explains why the RHS is using iNaturalist to help gather data on flowers visited by bumblebees this spring.
For a year or two now we have been using iNaturalist to assist our efforts to record wildlife sightings in our five RHS Gardens, helping us build up a picture of the biodiversity that these spaces support and fill in the gaps from more formal surveys. It is also a great tool to direct our staff and visitors towards. And all part of our push to achieve our Sustainability Strategic goal of becoming ‘biodiversity positive’.
This year though we wanted to try something a little different and see if we could use the traditional iNaturalist project to help answer specific questions raised by our Science team. Initially we had an idea for a fungi project (more on that later this year!) but as that lent itself to an autumn survey and we were impatient to get started we scratched our heads for a neat spring project, something that everyone could get behind and that would also help inform our advice on planting for pollinator insects – and hey presto, the Bumbles on Blooms idea was hatched.
Why bumblebees?
Bumblebees just seemed like the perfect subject; the queens start emerging from their overwintering burrows in February, of all the bee species in the UK bumblebees are a group most people wouldn’t have too much difficulty recognising (even if not to species level) and, when visiting flowers bumblebees are pretty relaxed about letting humans snap their photo. We also undertake Beewalks at a number of our RHS Gardens so it’s a pollinator group we have some experience in. That said, we aren’t the bumblebee experts so at the early planning stage we hooked up with the helpful folks at Bumblebee Conservation Trust who were happy to support us by letting us point to their excellent online materials, such as how to photograph bumblebees and a video explaining how to tell the ‘Big 8’ most common species apart.
Why flowers in parks and gardens?
Planted spaces – residential gardens, allotments, parks – are where we love to grow lots of trees, shrubs and flowers and collectively they contribute a significant amount of nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinating insects to forage on. This is especially true in urban areas. The diversity of flowering plants we like to grow and the desire by gardeners to have things in flower in all seasons means these plants are well placed to supplement wild flowers. This is particularly true at the ends of the season when the vagaries of climate change can put additional pressure on insects. In spring, finding a ready and reliable source of nectar to fuel activity is critical for queen bumblebees. And ditto for pollen which is fed to developing larvae back in the nest. As spring progresses the workers take up the challenge of collecting pollen so February to May* is make or break time for bumblebee colonies. The data we gather from Bumbles on Blooms will help us strengthen our RHS Plants for Pollinator lists and recommendations we give gardeners on the best plants for supporting bumblebees in spring.
*RHS Bumbles on Blooms runs from 12 February to 31 May 2024
What else are we asking participants of Bumbles on Blooms?
In addition to asking what flower the bumblebee is on (this is an optional question, though we would ask that an extra photo of the flower on its own is added to the record if you don’t know so that our team can try to identify it), we are also curious to discover if bumblebees have any preferences for flower colour during the spring months, and how urban or rural the site is where the record is taken. Some studies suggest that the extreme ends of the urban to rural gradient may be less favourable to pollinating insects (and wildlife in general) than in the middle so it would be nice to see if our project supports this.
So please spread the word. Details on taking part can be found on the RHS Website and the iNaturalistUK project Bumbles on Blooms.
As this is a traditional project you will need to take an action join the project and share your observations. More details on how to do this are in the 'How do I take part?' section on the RHS website
Or if you want to learn more about using iNaturalistUK and traditional projects read this tutorial on Adding Observations to a Traditional Project.
Take a look at the results to see how the experiment was undertaken and find out more detail. Keep in mind that these results are drawn from a relatively small sample size, but this is the first quantitative accuracy estimate they've had.
Know someone who's recording wildlife through iNaturalistUK and really making a difference? Why not nominate them for a 2024 NBN Award for Wildlife Recording? You can even nominate yourself! Closes: 3 April 2024
It was great to see that numbers of Saint Piran’s hermit crab (Clibanarius erythropus) are steadily rising along the south west coast of the UK, with dozens of sightings being reported to iNaturalistUK last year. Saint Piran’s hermit crab disappeared from our shores in the late 1980’s and has only recently reappeared. Unlike other hermit crabs their claws are of equal size and have black tips with electric blue and red stripes along their legs.
Increased numbers of bioluminescent crystal jellyfish (Genus Aequorea) were also reported towards the end of the summer in 2023, this delicate species are not commonly seen in the UK, usually preferring warmer waters. They are easily identified by their many tentacles (up to 150!) and fine white lines radiating from their centres.
The data collected by iNaturalistUK users is invaluable as it helps scientists globally to identify changes in our oceans.
What are licences and how do they work?
When you join iNaturalist you are presented with a “Yes, license my photos and observations so that they can be used by scientists” checkbox. Checking this adds a default Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC) to your content.
A licence is an agreement you make with someone who wants to use your property. By law in most places, content like photos are a kind of intellectual property and you have the right to control how your photos are copied in certain situations. Creative Commons (CC) licences are a bit different: they are licences you apply that allow anyone to use your intellectual property without having to negotiate with you individually and without having to pay you, as long as the terms of the licence are respected, e.g. that they give you credit. This provides content authors with some legal controls while allowing content users to utilize and remix that content without fear of a lawsuit.
iNaturalist offers users a number of licence options including ‘No licence (all rights reserved)’.
What licence should be used for UK observations?
In line with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility’s (GBIF) approach to data licensing (see this article from 2014) the NBN Atlas and iRecord require that all iNaturalist data shared to them are on one of three licences:
The NBN Atlas is the UK node for GBIF and with the agreement of its data providers it regularly shares records from UK-based datasets with GBIF. Please note that the NBN Atlas does not accept Share-alike (SA) or No-derivatives (ND) licences. You can read more about data licences on the NBN Atlas Help Page.
It is possible to license observations separately to your sounds or photos. So you may, for example, want to license your observation as CCO and photos as CC-BY-NC.
Why does it matter?
If your observation is not licensed with one of these three licences it can’t be pooled together with other UK data sets allowing us to build up a full picture of the UK’s biodiversity. It will also not be passed to GBIF by iNaturalist as part of their regular exports.
The ideal is that all observations are licensed as CC0 or CC-BY. However, we recognise that this may not be appropriate for all users for all observations. Currently only around 30% of observations are assigned a CC0 or CC-BY licence.
How to check which licence is attached to your observations
Log into iNaturalistUK: Account Settings > Content and Display. Scroll down the page to 'Licensing'. Select the relevant licence using the drop down arrows. Remember to Save Settings.
On the iNaturalist Android App: Settings > Default Licenses. Click on the relevant licence to change it.
iOS users will need to make the change on the website.
How to edit individual observation licences
To edit photos on an individual observation
Within iNaturalistUK:
On the iNaturalist App
To edit the licence of an individual observation including sounds
Within iNaturalistUK:
On the iNaturalist App
Further Reading
iNaturalistUK and its place in biological recording data flow
Licensing milestone for data access in GBIF.org
iNaturalist Licensed Observation Images in the Amazon Open Data Sponsorship Program
iNaturalist Blog – photo licences
You can also find more help and guidance within the iNatForum
There have recently been dozens of new reports of the invasive non-native Chinese mitten crab as they migrate downstream to waters of higher salinity in preparation to breed, sometimes travelling across land to reach their destination. Our furry friends have been appearing in back gardens and allotments across the country with one appearing outside a Sheffield pub and another spending the day at the Italian fountains in Kensington Gardens!
Identifiable by their brown furry, white tipped claws, the Chinese mitten crab is the only freshwater crab found in the UK and, on a more serious note, causes extensive damage to our river banks, modifying habitats and competing with native wildlife. They are classed as one of the world’s 100 worst invasive species and it is important that we monitor their distribution.
Thursday 14 December at 5 pm.
It's been an exciting year at iNaturalist — we became an independent nonprofit, our community surpassed 150 million observations and to cap it off, we're holding our first ever live, virtual event hosted by Carrie Seltzer, iNaturalist’s Head of Engagement. You're invited to join us to take a look back at 2023 and:
You can view your personal Year in Review via the link on the iNaturalistUK Year in Review or use the URL https://uk.inaturalist.org/stats/2023/you.
The stats will be refreshed every every Sunday in December and on January 1st so there is still time to add any sightings or identifications.