Blogs

The State of the UK's Birds 2013 has been produced by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) – and the UK Government’s statutory nature conservation agencies: Natural England (NE); Natural Resources Wales (NRW); Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA); Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH); and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

A consortium of UK biodiversity and conservation organizations have produced State of Nature, an assessment of biodiversity trends and status in the UK.  There are depressing downward trends for many key species of conservation interest with some success stories.  Key messages are:.../

• 60% of the 3,148 species assessed have declined over the last 50 years, 31% have declined strongly.  
• A new Watchlist Indicator for conservation priority species shows that their overall numbers have declined by 77% in the last 40 years, with little sign of recovery.
• The UK Overseas Territories hold a wealth of wildlife of huge international importance and over 90 of these species are at high risk of global extinction.
• There is a lack of knowledge on the trends of most of the UK’s species - quantitative trends can be assessed for only 5% of the 59,000 or so terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK, and for very few of the 8,500 marine species.
• Available data depend heavily on thousands of volunteers in monitoring schemes.
• Habitat loss and degradation are the most severe risks, with climate change having an increasing impact on nature in the UK

Consortium partners are:

• Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
• Association of British Fungus Groups (ABFG)
• British Lichen Society
• British Mycological Society
• British Trust for Ornithology
• Buglife
• Butterfly Conservation
• Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland
• Marine Conservation Society
• National Biodiversity Network
• People's Trust for Endangered Species
• Plantlife
• Pond Conservation
• Rothamsted Research
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• The Bat Conservation Trust
• The Biological Records Centre/Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
• The Botanical Society of the British Isles
• The British Bryological Society
• The Bumblebee Conservation Trust
• The Mammal Society
• The Marine Biological Association
• The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
• The Wildlife Trusts
• Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

There is a loose UK network of organisations collecting and communicating data.  A key focus is the UK Defra Non-Native Species Secretariat (NNSS)
Recording Invasive Species Counts (RISC) programme.  In collaboration with the NERC CEH - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (the Biological Records Centre) - it provides reporting software that gathers information - with links to the National Biodiversity Network.  Species and corresponding organisations collaborating in RISC are: /more.....Animals:

• Muntjac deer - the Mammal Society, The People's Trust for Endangered species,
• Zebra mussel - The Conchological Society,
• Mitten crab - The Marine Biological Association of the UK,
• American bullfrog - Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
• Citrus longhorn beetle - Food and Environment Research Agency
  
• Western conifer seedbug - Terrestrial Heteroptera Recording Scheme for GB and Ireland
  
• Southern green shieldbug - Terrestrial Heteroptera Recording Scheme for GB and Ireland
• Rhododendron leafhopper - Auchenorrhyncha Recording Scheme for GB and Ireland
  
• Signal crayfish - CEH
  

Plants:

• Water primrose - Botanical Society of the British Isles
  
• Tree of heaven - Botanical Society of the British Isles
• American skunk-cabbage - Botanical Society of the British Isles
• Floating pennywort - Botanical Society of the British Isles
• Water fern - Botanical Society of the British Isles
• Wakame - The Marine Biological Association of the UK
• Rhododendron - Botanical Society of the British Isles
• Himalayan balsam  - Botanical Society of the British Isles

And outside the RISC programme, there are other mapping and recording schemes that capture invasive data:

• Grey Squirrel - the Mammal Society
• Ring-necked parakeet - BTO Birdtrack, Project parakeet
• Harlequin ladybird - Harlequin ladybird survey
• Horse Chestnut leaf-miner - Conker Tree Science - a collaboration between the Universities of Bristol and Hull and NERC
  

These are the citizen science/mass observation projects.  There are many more species listed, research project and eradication initiatives listed on the GB Non-Native Species Secretariat site.