Online maps and atlases

#1

Hello,

Been using the online maps and atlases (Online maps and atlases | Biodiversity Projects) for some years now, as they’re such a fantastic resource! Just wondered when they might be updated please, as the most recently updated one is for the Orthoptera, in April 2020. All of the others, haven’t changed since 2019, or before (longhorn beetles is 2017)… It’s such a valuable resource, but becoming less useful when the records are out of date.
No longer too sure who to ask about them, as all the contacts I knew have since left… hence my message here!!

Thanks very much!

Kind regards

Maria

#2

Some enthusiast linked to the Shropshire Ecological Network I guess. Sara Whild is the name that springs to mind.
There’s a list of contacts to the various recording groups in Shropshire at https://www.shropshire.gov.uk/natural-shropshire/ecological-data-network-sedn/wildlife-and-species-recording-groups/ I know several there who are active in their specialist groups. Good luck

#3

Thanks Darwyn. It was people from the FSC that were dealing with it. Rich Burkmar created them, then Charlie Bell took them over, then Charles Roper I believe, but don’t know who it might be now. They’re greatly missed by many people!! Such a fabulous resource that we’d hate to lose…

#4

Hi Maria. Keiron Brown is the chap to talk to about these. Keiron Derek Brown [email protected]. I’m pretty sure that they are doing some more work on the development of local atlases, but I don’t know how the current ones are maintained. Have a chat with Keiron.

Rich

#5

Brilliant! Thanks very much Rich; I will do indeed!
(Hope you’re keeping well! :blush:)

#6

Hi Maria,

I’m still on the BioLinks project, although with very limited time. I’ll tag @keironderekbrown in on this thread so he can see the whole thing.

We are indeed working on an update to the Atlas that should allow anyone to upload a spreadsheet of data and have an interactive atlas created for them.

cc @andrewmcd

If you have any questions, let us know.

Cheers,
Charles

#7

Hi Charles,

That’s brilliant news! Thank you! Looking forward to seeing how it pans out. I’ve already sent Keiron an email earlier today, so thanks for tagging him here.

Best wishes,

Maria

#8

Hi All. The Atlas work that Rich started is fantastic. I understand that the Atlases that were created and maintained are really useful, but the current team is just far too stretched to be able to maintain them. The FSC BioLinks project has been through a lot of changes and had a challenging year… when I started the year I was the only full time member of staff and we had three vacant positions. Digitally, we’ve had to build a whole online training platform and it’s all hands on deck testing, adapting and maintaining this for delivering both project and wider FSC training products.

For this very reason, and to ensure a bit more longevity, we are working on progressing these into a Toolkit so that natural history societies can install and maintain there own atlases.

My colleague Andy McDonald is leading on this and the hope is to end up with something similar to what Rich did for us on the Earthworm Society of Britain website: Earthworm Society of Britain | Digging into the world of earthworms

#9

That looks amazing! Would work really well like that I think.
Thanks very much Keiron,