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The Threatened Plants Database (TPDB) started out as the Nature Conservancy Council’s Red Data Book database in the early 1990s. Originally it was run by Martin Wigginton but, after publication of his 3rd Edition of the Red Data Book in 1999, the BSBI took over the project and has maintained it until the present day.
The TPDB is more highly structured and detailed than most biological recording databases, with sites for all records, population counts, NVC quadrats and 8-figure grid references.
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Which species are covered?
There are currently 562 taxa covered by the TPDB, including some that are as yet unpublished. This includes most of the rare and threatened plants in Britain & Ireland. Other taxa can be added as the need arises. The database includes charophytes and covers Britain, Ireland, the Channel isles and the Isle of Man. It currently contains some 225,000 records.
>>> List of TPDB species
Can I contribute?
If you have records of any rare or scarce and declining (i.e. threatened) plants, then you can send them for inclusion in the TPDB, where they will be stored safely and in full detail. We keep a comprehensive archive of paper files and reports, and many thousands of electronic documents and images. It is impossible to guarantee no loss of data, but we have a good track record over the last twenty years or so, and thorough backup procedures. We are trusted by government agencies to hold sensitive files and data.
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How is the database used?
Many of the records in the TPDB are periodically exported in summary form to the BSBI Maps Scheme, the Biological Records Centre and the NBN Gateway, and often the national distribution maps of rare species are largely made up of data from the TPDB.
However, much of the underlying data cannot be exported, because other databases are not configured to cope with so many inter-related fields and tables of data. Producing distribution maps is just the simplest possible task. The TPDB is much better used for research purposes, as it can perform far more sophisticated analyses. The best way to interact with the TPDB is to work with us to devise a survey and data collection process, and then undertake purposeful analyses. We are always interested to hear from people who wish to collaborate on such research.
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