BSBI monitoring scheme (1987-88)

IN FULL: The Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI), in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy Council, the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology set up the BSBI monitoring scheme in 1986. The project had two main objectives: - to provide information on the current status of the vascular plant flora of Britain and Ireland by means of a sample survey, and to compare the current status with that recorded for species up to 1960 in the Atlas of the British flora; - to provide a baseline for future monitoring of the flora. The sample basis of the scheme was to collect records from one ninth of the 10 km squares in Britain and Ireland, with detailed surveys being made of three selected tetrads (2x2 km squares) in each of the 10 km squares sampled. The project had two field seasons, in 1987 and 1988, in which members of BSBI and other botanists collected nearly one million records. These data were computerised at the Biological Records Centre, where the scheme was based throughout. A report on the scheme has been prepared and submitted to the main funding body, the Nature Conservancy Council. The data from the scheme are incorporated in the Biological Records Centre's ORACLE database. The poster illustrated some of the results and problems of the scheme.