As part of its 20th anniversary celebrations during 2020, the National Biodiversity Network Trust (NBN Trust) is highlighting the 20 most popular datasets on the NBN Atlas. Rather than being swayed by subjectivity, this “top 20” is an objective measure of the most downloaded wildlife datasets – taking into account the length of time the dataset has been on the NBN Atlas.
So, these are the 20 datasets that you have found interesting enough to download most frequently either for your work or for your personal use.
During the NBN Trust’s 20th anniversary year we are looking at these “top 20” favourite NBN Atlas wildlife datasets in turn.
The datasets
Here are two more NBN Atlas datasets from the ‘top 20’ most downloaded:
Birds (BTO and partners) to 2005
We continue with the 21,456,706 records of birds from BTO and Partners to 2005.
These UK-wide records of bird species have been submitted by contributors to surveys run by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) over many years, often in collaboration with other partner organisations. Most records originate from Garden Birdwatch and BirdTrack with smaller numbers of records drawn from a wide range of other surveys including the Non-Estuarine Waterbird Survey (NEWS). Records have been converted to standard biological records and have been deduplicated.
The 21,456,706 records span 588 species – the most counted including the Common Blackbird, the Eurasian Blue tit and the European Robin. The records cover 283 genera and 84 families.
These bird records have been downloaded 13,029 times resulting in the sharing of 1,532,234,196 records. The most common reason for downloading these records is ‘Education’ (3,101 times) followed by ‘Ecological research’ (2,004 times) and ‘Environmental assessment’ (999 times).
Why not take a look at this dataset from the BTO and Partners yourself?
National Mammal Atlas Project, online recording
Another of the “top 20” most downloaded datasets are the 173,044 records from the National Mammal Atlas Project, online recording.
These records are from public sightings of mammals across the UK, submitted via an online recording form. The majority of records in this dataset are provided with 100m or greater precision. Many records also have a photograph attached to aid verification.
These 173,044 records comprise 90 species of which the European Rabbit, the Grey Squirrel and the European Hedgehog are the most counted. The records span 63 genera from 26 families.
This dataset has been downloaded 11,709 times, enabling the sharing of 10,548,812 records.
The three most common reasons for downloading this dataset are: ‘Education’ (3,129 times), ‘Ecological Research’ (937 times) and ‘Commercial’ (687 times).
Why not take a look at this dataset from the Mammal Society yourself?
Read about the other Top 20 datasets