BSBI at the 2024 International Botanical Congress in Madrid: Days 5-7

This is the third and final report by BSBI trustee Richard Allanach from the XX International Botanical Congress in Madrid, following on from Days 1&2 and Days 3&4. 

Over to Richard:

"Amongst the five lectures and 54 symposia delegates could attend on Thursday there was still plenty of opportunity for botanists to meet and plan future activity. Current and future BSBI Presidents Micheline Sheehy Skeffington and Paul Ashton met with Xavier Pico of our sister society, the Spanish Botanical Society (SEBOT), to discuss future collaboration. Xavier is lucky enough to work in the Donana, a fabulous wetland area in southern Spain - home to lynxes, hoopoes and the sage- leaved rockrose. In the image on the right, BSBI correspondent Richard Allanach hovers to the right of the gathering.

Friday at the twentieth International Botanical Congress in Madrid was definitely Commonwealth Day. For reasons of narrative clarity we will describe it back to front. The major public lecture which closed the day was about RBG Kew's’ series of reports on the ‘State of the World’s plants and fungi’ in which BSBI is a partner and contributes data to the reports.

Headline – half of the world’s flowering plant species are threatened with extinction. Prof Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at RBG Kew, referred to the well known concept of floristic hotspots. The next International Botanical Congress in 2029 will be held in the middle of flowering season in the floral hotspot of Cape Province, South Africa (9,500 plant species, 68% endemic). As well as floral hotspots, Prof Antonelli introduced the concept of floral "dark spots" based first on the probable number of undiscovered plant species and secondly on our geographical knowledge of the spread of each species. Unsurprisingly, and thanks to the work of BSBI members over many decades, our islands were placed at the polar opposite end of the spectrum from the world’s dark spots. Prof Antonelli believes we have few undiscovered species (but see below). However then came a moment for Hiberno-Britannic pride. Whilst our islands and France are ranked equally for likely undiscovered species it is believed our geographical knowledge of the species we have is significantly better than our Gallic neighbours. Indeed a French delegate to the BSBI stand acknowledged that Plant Atlas 2020 was significantly better than anything our Trans-Manche cousins have, before he concluded that because of the greater floral diversity of France if they had produced a Flora similar to our own it would have taken four volumes rather than our paltry two.

An encouraging feature of the Congress was the number of delegates from India. Their team of 68 botanists was the tenth largest delegation and comfortably exceeded the sum of delegates from the entire continent of Africa. Naturally many Indian delegates came and talked to us on the BSBI stand. Hopefully this might lead to future collaboration.

Saturday: The first lecture of the day raised an interesting possibility that RBG Kew might be wrong and that our islands hold as yet unclassified new species. Prof Angela Moles of the University of New South Wales, Australia spoke about climate change and the movement of plant species. A paradox is that a third of studied species are heading in the “wrong” direction towards a warmer climate. She also spoke about a South African aster Arctotheca populifolia (beach daisy) which was first recorded in Australia less than 100 years ago. The Australian population was morphologically distinct, flowers at a different time of year and even when forced to breed in a lab experiment has a very low rate of setting viable seed. On that basis Prof Moles argued the Australian population could be classed as a new species. Given the propensity of our Victorian forebears to bring back specimens from all over their world and their subsequent escape into the wild surely some could meet the same levels of morphological distinctness and theoretical and practical gene isolation. They will have had decades longer than the beach daisy to become independent of their parent population.

If you had fallen asleep after Sandra Knapp’s opening lecture ‘Why Botany, Why Now?’ on the opening day of the XX International Botanical Congress and not woken up until twenty to four on the final afternoon you might have thought the entire event was dominated by BSBI speakers. In the final slot before the closing ceremony, BSBI President-Elect Prof Paul Ashton (image on right) spoke about how genes flow across our environment. Prof Ashton took three species: Water Sedge Carex aquatilis, Meadow Crane's-bill Geranium pratense and Downy-fruited Sedge Carex filiformis, and used his own research to report on their genetic diversity in our islands. His lecture was well illustrated with distribution information from BSBI's Plant Atlas 2020 and among other matters he concluded that in Britain, Carex filiformis was now fragmented into genetically isolated populations, with all the threats to future survival that poses. He concluded his lecture with a rousing call for conservation action directed to renewing the corridors that enable genes to flow between different plant species populations. 

After Paul’s lecture all that remained was the closing ceremony and the adoption of the rather wordy Madrid Declaration - doubtless many BSBI members will be pleased that improved support for herbaria made it into the first point of the ten points of the declaration".

Huge thanks to Richard for these reports from the International Botanical Congress!

BSBI at the 2024 International Botanical Congress in Madrid: Days 3&4

Following on from his first report from the XX International Botanical Congress in Madrid, we have another report from BSBI trustee, Richard Allanach. But first, a correction: we said that there were three people in the BSBI delegation: BSBI President Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, Richard himself and fellow trustee Dr Sandy Knapp OBE, but Richard tells me that Prof Pete Hollingsworth CBE, Director of Science at RBG Edinburgh (and also a BSBI trustee), and Prof Paul Ashton, Professor of Botany at Edge Hill University and BSBI President-elect, are also attending the Congress. It's great to have such strong BSBI  representation at such an important event!

So, over to Richard for his latest report - and he also took the photos on this page:

"The issue of how Ireland was revegetated following the last Ice Age was one of the exciting topics addressed at the XX International Botanical Congress on Tuesday. Reviewing Ireland's tree species, Colin Kelleher of the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland, concluded that the majority of trees would have arrived from the continent via Britain. 

"It was left to BSBI President Micheline Sheehy Skeffington (image on left) and her research colleagues from the Universities of Corunna and Santiago de Compostela to reveal the origins of the Irish population of Arbutus unedo (the strawberry tree) which in all probability arrived with copper prospectors from the Iberian peninsula around 2000 BC. 

"Whilst this was news to the delegates at the Congress, BSBI members had advance notice of their findings: Micheline gave a short talk on her findings to the 2023 British and Irish Botanical Conference in Newcastle, and also published a paper in British & Irish Botany, the BSBI's online scientific journal.

"On Wednesday the XX International Botanical Congress's programme of talks, workshops and symposia stopped at lunchtime. For some delegates this was an opportunity to take a siesta in Madrid's sweltering 35 degree heat. However for many of the ardent young botanists attending - including four of the British delegation, workers at Kew Gardens and Sheffield University - it was just swapping one type of work for another and a chance to visit Madrid's Botanic Gardens. The three pictured (image on right) were examining the nut-like cones of Taxodium distichum, a much finer tree than its cousin, the all too common Leylandii. An example of a blooming international co-operation stemming from this Congress, we have (from left to right) a delegate from Spain, from Colombia and from Germany".

Many thanks to Richard for this latest report from Madrid. If you're also following latest updates on X/Twitter at #IBC2024, you may spot a few other notable British and Irish botanists/ BSBI members, including Dr Jonathan Mitchley, of Botanical University Challenge fame, and agricultural geneticist Prof Pat Heslop-Harrison; their Twitter accounts will keep you updated on what these luminaries are hearing, seeing and talking about at the Congress. 

BSBI at the 2024 International Botanical Congress in Madrid: Days 1&2

The Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland is honoured to support - and attend - the 20th International Botanical Congress in Madrid this week. 

Our President, Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, and two of our trustees - Dr Sandy Knapp OBE and Richard Allanach - are present, and Richard has sent the following report and photographs from the first two days of the Congress:

"Three thousand botanists gathered together (image on right) in Madrid yesterday for the opening of the twentieth International Botanical Congress. The opening address was given by Sandra Knapp (image below left) of the Natural History Museum in London, who among many other roles is also a trustee of the BSBI. Sandra's title was 'Why Botany, Why Now?' She spoke for an hour throwing out ideas as rapidly as a bank of gorse throws out seeds on a warm summer's day. 

The International Botanical Congress only takes place every six years. The last event was in China and the next will be in South Africa. Botanists from Britain and Ireland make up the fourth largest delegation to the Congress.

The BSBI's poster (image below left) on our Plant Atlas 2020 project was unveiled at the XX International Botany Congress in Madrid on Monday. It immediately caught the interest of two passing specialists in the Droseraceae. The Australian botanist was interested in the contrast between the distribution of sundews in our islands and those in Australia. 

Whilst here sundews seem to prefer the wetter, colder areas where the botanist's boot sinks deep into the underlying bog, in Australia they have a much wider distribution with some establishing themselves on rocks where they are exposed to drought for months at a time. The word from our Trans-Atlantic sundew expert was that our Plant Atlas was 'cool'."

Many thanks to Richard for this report! Readers of this blog already know that Plant Atlas 2020 is very cool, but it's good to know that botanists from the other side of the world are in agreement. You can follow the latest news from the Congress on X under the #IBC2024 hashtag.

New pocket guide to British and Irish Wild Flowers and Plants

A new ID guide to the British and Irish flora has just been published in the WILDGuides series from Princeton University Press, who published both Plant Atlas 2020 and popular recent titles such as Britain's Orchids. 

British and Irish Wild Flowers and Plants: A Pocket Guide is available now, and covers more than 1,000 of our most common wild plants. It also features BSBI plant distribution maps (and the eagle-eyed among you will spot the BSBI logo on the book's cover!); the authors are Rachel Hamilton, Chris Gibson - both longstanding BSBI members and highly respected field botanists - and Rob Still, the man behind WILDGuides. With more than 3,000 colour photographs, plant descriptions and simple visual keys to families, the authors are confident that this new ID guide will provide a "springboard into the wider world of botanical identification".   

British and Irish Wild Flowers and Plants: A Pocket Guide retails at £12.99 and is available to purchase now from natural history booksellers such as Summerfield Books who are offering it for only £7.95 (excl. P&P). 

This softback book has 320 pages and weighs just over half a kilo, so it should slip nicely into the pocket of anyone keen to get started on identifying some of our commonest wild plants. If that's you, then why not give the book a go and leave a comment below telling us what you thought? Or, if you're already a seasoned botanist, this book might be the ideal present for you to give to any plant-loving friends keen to take the next step into plant ID! 

Pseudonyms and the BSBI Distribution Database

Bee Orchid Ophrys apifera
submitted on iNaturalist by 'hemipepsis'  

In this blogpost, BSBI Countries Manager James Harding-Morris sheds light on the issue of botanical recorders using pseudonyms Over to James:

"In the past, BSBI's County Recorders (VCRs) would largely receive records from a known network of individuals allowing a fine-tuned understanding of their botanical abilities. With the growth in recording technology (such as iRecord) this has allowed any enthusiast to generate biological records for any taxa. This increase in accessibility has allowed a broader range of people to take part in recording, but means that our approaches to working with this data need to evolve.

We are all familiar with the rule that a biological record is composed of four key parts; the Who, What, When and Where. When working with data from certain sources, however, some records are submitted under a pseudonym. This has led to some discussion around the treatment of pseudonyms on the BSBI’s Distribution Database (the DDb). To help VCRs make decisions on what data they chose to move into the DDb, we have drawn together some information into this blog post.

Sources of records with pseudonyms

Great Forget-me-not
Brunnera macrophylla
 

Pseudonymous records are most likely to be encountered when working with data submitted by the general public through iNaturalist and, to a lesser extent, iRecord. These records enter a separate holding pen on the DDb after a transfer and can be moved into the live DDb at VCR discretion. See full guidance on that process here.

To take "my" vice-county North Lincolnshire (VC54) as an example, the vast majority of records submitted via iRecord have been submitted with full, personal names. With iNaturalist, the incidence of pseudonyms is higher - perhaps 10% of records. These proportions may and probably will vary from county to county, but in my experience the records I have received from pseudonymous users are no less serious or valuable than those from people who appear to be using legal names. For example, the record I received of Brunnera macrophylla (on left) submitted on iNaturalist by 'giles63' - this is an unusual alien for VC54. 

A benefit of iNaturalist is that nearly all records will have an associated image, allowing the identification to be confirmed. Pseudonyms are also stable and unique - as in, a person will be associated with an unchanging name - and can allow development of a long-term perspective of a recorder’s ability.

Why do people use pseudonyms?

People may use pseudonyms online for a number of reasons:

Trailing Bellflower
Campanula poscharskyana
submitted on iNaturalist by 'biomel'

Internet safety: Young people, when first learning about internet safety, are told not to share personal identity data online. There are now generations of people who have grown up with this advice, making online pseudonyms second nature.

Uniqueness: Pseudonyms are unique. When registering for an online account, you can’t have the same name as someone else, which can compel people to use something other than their legal name. There is value in this, as pseudonyms tend to be stable and unique, unlike real names. Matt Harding, BSBI Scotland Officer, recently pointed out that there are a number of records on the DDb for ‘M. Harding,’ not all of which are his.

Protection of vulnerable people: Pseudonyms can protect the identities of vulnerable individuals or those responsible for them, who may not want to disclose their real names for personal or safeguarding reasons. This is something to be aware of when considering the use of pseudonyms in a public-facing forum such as iRecord or iNaturalist, where anyone with an account can see the names (or pseudonyms) of other recorders.

What are the risks of ignoring pseudonymous records?

The risk of trying to identify pseudonyms is that some people simply have names that might look like pseudonyms - Monte-Carlo, Dreamy, Alloy, Costly, Arwen and Eowyn could appear as unlikely real names but were all given to children in 2023. Conversely, the name Colin Robinson could appear a perfectly reasonable name but may actually be the pseudonym of a What We Do In the Shadows fan. Ignoring records with (perceived) pseudonyms runs the risk of accidentally excluding records from genuine recorders with unique or unusual names.

Colin Robinson (on right) alongside
 his other vampire companions 

Another risk is that valuable plant records could be missed. By simply discounting records on the basis of a pseudonym then unusual or exciting records could be eliminated before consideration.

Final points

Feedback mechanism: Working with records in the DDb holding pen does not (yet) allow feedback to the users of iRecord. However, if you or a member of your VCR team verify records within iRecord itself, there is an opportunity to exchange messages with users, which could include asking whether they’d be happy to provide a legal name - which they often are! Of course, given some of the reasons mentioned above, a few people may have a good rationale for remaining pseudonymous.

Support for record verification: If you would like to start verifying records in iRecord for your VC, or would like to find someone else to support you by verifying records, then please contact your Country Officer or email me, James Harding-Morris, who will support you in getting set up.

VCR discretion: VCRs have final say on which records enter the live DDb for their vice-county and hopefully this blogpost will support VCRs with that decision making process. That said, no records should be rejected on the basis of a pseudonym, and instead should be left in the ‘holding pen’ and not moved to the live DDb.