The Biological Records Centre has been working with a number of national recording schemes to develop new verification rules for NBN Record Cleaner, the free validation and verification tool for recorders and biodiversity data managers. Record Cleaner enables users to check large volumes of data to highlight any records that fall outside the known temporal or spatial distribution of that species, as well as highlighting records of species that are inherently difficult to identify.
Record Cleaner rules are also integrated into the online recording system iRecord, to help verifiers filter incoming data to highlight interesting records and to send automated messages to recorders about their records. Further information about the use of Record Cleaner rules in iRecord can be found here.
Verification rules have already been developed for birds, vascular plants, butterflies, macro moths, spiders, mammals, bryophytes, dragonflies and damselflies, mammals, hoverflies and some marine species. The new contracts have enabled verification rule sets to be produced for over 2,600 taxa by the following national recording schemes:
• Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society – Hymenoptera: Aculeata (Bees, Wasps and Ants)
• Centipede Recording Scheme – Myriapoda: Chilopoda (Centipedes)
• Millipede Recording Scheme – Myriapoda: Diplopoda (Millipedes)
• Isopod Recording Scheme – Isopoda, non-marine species (Woodlice)
• Ground Beetle Recording Scheme – Coleoptera: Carabidae (Ground Beetles)
• Riverfly Recording Schemes – Ephemeroptera (Mayflies), Trichoptera (Caddisflies), Plecoptera (Stoneflies)
• Orthoptera Recording Scheme – Orthoptera, Dermaptera, Dictyoptera and Phasmida (grasshoppers and allies)
• Ladybird Recording Scheme – Coleoptera: Coccinellidae (Ladybirds)
• Auchenorhyncha Recording Scheme – Auchenorrhyncha (leafhoppers and froghoppers)
• Terrestrial Heteroptera Recording Schemes: Heteroptera, terrestrial species (shieldbugs, plant bugs and allies)
• Larger Brachycera Recording Scheme – Diptera: Larger Brachycera (robberflies, soldierflies and related families)
• National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme and Amphibian and Reptile Groups – UK Amphibians and Reptiles
The new verification rules have already been incorporated into Record Cleaner and iRecord. Record Cleaner automatically searches for new rules every time it is opened, so it will alert users that the new rules are available and provide a link to download them.
The NBN Trust would like to thank the Biological Records Centre and all the national recording schemes who worked together to develop these rules. The report produced by the BRC dsecribing the methods used in creating the rules can be found here.
The next sets of verification rules to be developed will be lichens and lichenicolous fungi, Anthozoa (anemones and soft corals), seaweeds, plume moths, Gelechiid moths and aquatic Heteroptera.
This work was funded under the Defra contract for the development of the NBN.