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. 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 will be looking at these ‘top 20’ favourite NBN Atlas wildlife datasets in turn.
The datasets
Here are the first two datasets to be featured from the ‘top 20’.
Bees, wasps and ants
We start with the 162,526 UK-wide records of bees, wasps and ants (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) from iRecord.
This dataset contains records for bees, wasps and ants, the majority of which have been verified by the BWARS (Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society) iRecord Verification Team. Most of them are ad hoc records from volunteer wildlife recorders, but may also include data from professional surveys and from citizen science projects such as bioblitzes.
The 162,526 records cover 513 species, from 123 genera and 18 families.
Since being hosted on the NBN Atlas in February 2020, these bee, wasp and ant (Hymenoptera: Aculeata) records have been downloaded 654 times resulting in the sharing of 2,228,612 records. The most common reason for downloading these records is ‘Education’ (218 times) followed by ‘Commercial’ (146 times).
Why not take a look at this dataset from iRecord yourself?
National Trust species records
Another of the ‘top 20’ most downloaded datasets are the 595,069 records from National Trust properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Transferred from the NBN Gateway to the NBN Atlas on 30 March 2017, these records are from the National Trust species database from National Trust Biological Survey reports, Bioblitzes and other records.
These 595,069 records comprise 18,794 species from 7,357 genera and 1,730 families.
This dataset has been downloaded 23,198 times, enabling the sharing of 11,283,316 records.
The most common reasons for downloading this dataset are: ‘Education’ (4,779 times), ‘Ecological research’ (2,585 times), ‘Environmental assessment (2,005 times) and ‘Scientific research’ (1,623).
Why not take a look at this dataset from the National Trust yourself?