UK BAP priority species accounts – further information
Sources of information
Four sources of information were used to generate the species
accounts:
1. Information derived from the Review of Priority
Habitats and Species (2007)
An explanation of the process used for the review is included in
the BRIG Report on the
Species and Habitat Review, 2007. This review was
organised in two stages. Stage 1 looked at the scientific evidence
for selecting the UK list of Priority Species and Habitats, while
Stage 2 considered the conservation action needed for the
priority species and provided signposts to the means of
implementing action. Actions were assigned to every
priority species by expert groups convened at Stage 2 of the Review
process. These were subsequently categorised into 'signpost
categories'. Where a species action is clearly linked to a BAP
priority habitat, the name of the relevant habitat or habitats was
identified by the Stage 2 expert group.
2. The 2nd UK Report on the implementation of the Habitats
Directive (2008)
This is only applicable to species listed under the Annexes 2, 4
and 5 of the Habitats Directive. The information presented in the
species pages was collated by the UK Government in fulfilment of
the requirement under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive.
3. JNCC’s collation of information on species
designations
The designations shown are as at January 2010.
4. The 2008 UK BAP reporting round.
The 2008 UK BAP reporting round examined the 475 species which
were placed on the original UK BAP list in 1997. For
each species, information was provided on status,
trends, successes, threats, constraints and state of
knowledge. Further information about the 2008 Reporting Round
is available here.
Guidance on using the species accounts
The most convenient way to access these pages is to use the
spreadsheet
containing the list of all 1150 species. This spreadsheet can
be filtered in several different ways by clicking on the filter
arrows by the column headings – for example by Country, taxonomic
Group and whether or not it is an original UK BAP species. Guidance
on how to use the spreadsheet is given in the 'readme' section on
this spreadsheet. Below are also some examples on how to
use the information.
Example 1
Is climate change implicated in the marked decline of any
birds in Wales?
In the spreadsheet, set filters on the columns as follows:
Occurs in Wales = Y,
classification level 2 = birds
Marked decline = Y.
This gives 26 bird species. Each of these 26 species accounts
can be opened in turn by clicking on the link in the third column –
look at the actions, additional information from experts and the
threats information where available through the UK BAP 2008
reporting round. A read through the species accounts shows
that Black Grouse is the only one of these 26 species where climate
change is specifically mentioned, and that for a number of species
the reason for decline is not known for certain. Because all of
this information is gathered into one place, and is presented in a
standard format, the species accounts can be quickly mined for any
relevant information. This is however never going to provide
totally comprehensive information for this sort of inquiry,
especially when there are gaps in our knowledge, and where the link
between a threat and decline has not been scientifically proven.
The data is of course restricted to UK BAP species and will not
pick up other species such as Golden Plover and Curlew which have
suffered catastrophic decline as breeding species in Wales (but not
elsewhere in the UK to the same extent). The declines of these
birds is thought to be linked to climate change.
Example 2
How many lichens recorded from
only a single location occur in
Scotland?
Is there any common theme for
the identified management actions and threats?
Set filters on the columns as follows:
Classification level 2 = lichens
Occurs in Scotland = Y
Occurs in other Countries = N
Number of locations = 1
10 species meet the above criteria. The accounts for all of
these can be quickly read, from which it can be established that
these lichens are all specialists in different types of situations
and have quite different management requirements. Action is best
planned at the single site level in each case.