Jon Webb Senior Entomologist

The Development of ISIS

Invertebrate

Species-habitats

Information

System

God-mother of creation

ISIS

• Reasons for building ISIS

• Philosophy behind ISIS

• What it currently looks like

• Uses

• Where to next

Reasons for building ISIS

• Undertake Common Standards Monitoring: the agencies method for determining the condition of SSSIs.

• Strictly to monitor the condition of invertebrate assemblages (529)

Reasons for building ISIS

Also...

• Desire to construct a form of classification for system for England (botanists have NVC / entomologists have ISIS)

• Desire to move towards communities and away from single species conservation

Generate species list from targeted survey

Input list into a

programme

Programme separates species into assemblage types and scores them

Slides from 2007 Presentation

• A system that helps define invertebrate interest in terms of quality and type would be very beneficial

e.g. a ‘rich fen’ assemblage of ‘national’ interest

Slides from 2007 Presentation

What is an assemblage?

• A collection of plants/animals associated with a particular

environment that can be used as an indicator of that environment.

‘Assemblage Philosophy’

• A taxonomic assemblage (Lepidoptera, Dragonflies)

• Based on habitat association (woodland, chalk grassland)

• Based on niches (heart rot, bare ground)

• Based on process (flow rate, disturbance)

• There is not one way to do this.

• We decided to use niches and process. Why?

• At the time we wanted to have a free hand rather than having a system built for vegetation imposed upon us.

Developing ISIS Assemblage Types

• Meetings with recognised experts.

• Initial model based on extensive datasets & expert opinion.

• Further models based on sampling programme and community analysis testing (Correspondence Analysis, Analysis of Similarity).

• Testing not yet complete.

History of ISIS

• Conceptual Ideas (2004-5)

• ENRR618 Invertebrate Assemblages on English SSSIs (Alexander et al 2004)

• ISIS Prototype 2006

• Published paper in JoIC (Webb & Lott 2006)

• ISIS 2007

• NERR 005 Survey Research Report (Drake et al 2007)

• Common Standards Monitoring (Key, Heaver and Webb 2008)

• ISIS 2008

• ISIS 2009

• ISIS 2010

ISIS – ‘ugly’

Currently - excel spreadsheet.

Expectation – web-based application

Expectation – consortium?

• Over 10,000 species have been coded into assemblage types

• for any assemblage a ‘score’ and ‘type’ can be generated

ISIS 2010

HANDOUT

Arboreal assemblages

Good data on dead wood species

Poor data on canopy species

Field layer

• Broad assemblages types based on insolation and humidity and are robust.

• Specific assemblages under reviewbare ground and short turf

general ground cover

scrub edge

rich flower resource

rich seed resource

hollow stems and dead wood

fungi

dung

carrion

restricted host-plants

restricted prey items

nests

litter/humid conditions

Wetland

• Based mainly on disturbance gradient

• Robust

• Well tested

TWINSPAN analysis (Webb unpublished)

Permanent Mires: Poor Fen

Permanent Mires: Rich Fen

Fluctuating Mires &

Slow-flowing rivers

Fast-flowing rivers

Saltmarsh &seashore

Coastal

SaltmarshSandy beachesRocky shores

Examples of Use

Isis priestess from Denver

ISIS – Data to be used

Specific survey protocol is available for common standards monitoring

Can add in any list from any source

Can be used in a comparative way between sites that have been surveyed in similar manner

Should not jump to conclusions about scores where survey protocol has not been adhered to

Poor data = poor ISIS results

Monitoring SSSI Assemblage Features

• Thresholds set for each assemblage type (based on test results)

• Standard Survey methods used

Specific Assemblage Type No. Of Species

W111 shingle bank 9

W312 sphagnum bog 8

F111 bare sand and chalk 19

M311 saltmarsh 9

1) Monitoring

• Chartley Moss, Staffs

• basin Mire

• sphagnum rafts, boggy pools, ericaceous vegetation etc

• invertebrate feature: W312 Sphagnum bog

Threshold: 8 species

Number Found: 12

2) Determining Interest

• Aunt Mary’s Bottom

• wet woodland, Dorset

• Site description suggests its good for Diptera

• surveyed 2005

• 170+ species from key groups of Diptera

SAT

codeSAT name

No.

spp.

W126 Seepage 8

W221 Undisturbed fluctuating marsh 2

W312 Sphagnum bog 1

F003 Scrub-heath & moorland 2

A212 Bark & sapwood decay 1

River valley SAT scores

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Rhe

idol Till

Wea

r

Coq

uet

Con

on

Dov

e

Wha

rfe

Tem

e

Tre

nt

Lower

Soa

r

Upp

erSoa

r

SHINGLE BANKS

WATER FALLS

RIPARIAN SAND

FLUCTUATING

WETLANDS

ISIS – From 2006 Powerpoint

Natural area SAT scores

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Charnw ood New Forest

POOR FEN

RICH FEN

FLUCTUATING

WETLANDS

RIVER SHINGLE

WATER FALLS

ISIS – From 2006 Powerpoint

The Broads Fen Invertebrate Survey (Lott, Drake and Lee, 2010)

Broads cont...Specific Assemblage Types

Problems – where next etc

• Field Layer needs more work

• Thresholds do not take account of N/S divide

• Canopy assemblage unknown (does it vary from edge to top?)

• Currently only 1 species – 1 assemblage type relationship (could move to a 1 to many combo instead)

Future

• Aim to complete ISIS over the next 3 years

• Broad Assemblage types work well (90%)

• Some specific Assemblage types need revisiting (F in particular)

• 1 (species) to many (assemblage types)?

• Not one right answer

Future cont...

• Would like to collaborate with other agencies and organisations…but differences of opinion still arise

• Needs cleaning up. Web-based? Access Based?

• Difficult to complete in-house – ISIS may need to reside with a 3rd party organisation

Thank you

Authors of ISIS

• Derek Lott

• Martin Drake

• Keith Alexander

• Mike Edwards

• Jon Webb

Any Questions?