Message - 7th IAL Symposium

3B-1-O
Lichen: from genome to ecosystem in a changing world
3B-1: Bioinformatics
(3B-1-O1) Submission ID: IAL0248-00002
COLLECTING, VALIDATING AND USING DISTRIBUTION DATA OF LICHENS
IN THE NETHERLANDS
Sparrius L. 1
1 Dutch Bryological and Lichenological Society, Gouda, Netherlands
In 2003, the Dutch Bryological and Lichenological Society (DBLS) started to compile a database
with all distribution data of lichens in the Netherlands. Data sources included institutional collections, private
herbaria, lichen monitoring data, published lichen inventories and field observations. In 2011 all available data
was digitalized and combined into a database, comprising 0.6 million records. Most data had been collected
in lichen monitoring schemes, but a vast majority of the rest had been collected by amateur lichenologists,
especially saxicolous lichens and lichenicolous fungi. Amateurs are becoming the main source of distribution
data of lichens, and many other species groups. Several tools have been developed to store, validate and
visualize data collected by a distributed group of specialists. Web portals (e.g. www.telmee.nl, www.observado.
org) are relatively new and currently used by those who want to submit only a small number of observations at a
time. Datasets in several formats received by DBLS are stored in a local MS Access database. Both web portals
and local data are synchronized with the National Database Flora and Fauna, using a PostgreSQL webserver.
Incoming data needs to be validated in order keep the database free of errors as much as possible. This is done
by rule-based automated validation, which decided which records are checked by a group of voluntary validators,
mainly specialists. Observations of common taxa are automatically validated if a recent observation from
the same locality exists. Distribution data is used for a number of applications. DBLS maintains an online atlas
(www.verspreidingsatlas.nl) which displays the historical and present distribution at the scale of 5x5 km. Detailed
observations are under license available for amateur lichenologists, scientists and nature conservation organizations.
Data licenses are also sold to customers, including governmental organizations, ecological consultancy
firms and construction and building companies, which considerably improves the conservation of lichens. The
national database has recently been used to calculate trends for a new Red List, and provide distribution maps
and trend graphs for several publications.
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