National Trust publishes Wicken Fen data on the Gateway
In April 2009, after a few months of working closely with the NBN, the National Trust decided to share its data on Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire, through the Gateway. Wicken Fen is the most species rich nature reserve currently known in Britain, and this meant that for the first time 56,000 records of more than 7,400 species dating back to the 1830s were published online.
Wicken Fen was the very first Nature Reserve to be owned by The National Trust and has been in its care since 1899. It is one of only four nature reserves in the fens that have retained their original deep peaty soils and fen habitats. The core fen nature reserve of 255 hectares has the highest designations, national and international, for wildlife conservation and protection. It is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a National Nature Reserve, a Special Area for Conservation and an international Ramsar Wetland.
Wicken Fen is steeped in natural history with more than 150 years of records from academic experts and gifted amateurs who have visited the reserve. The provision of the dataset to the Gateway means that anyone fascinated with wildlife will be able to search this superb and unique archive.
In the last decade, as part of its Wicken Fen Vision project, The National Trust has increased its land ownership at Wicken Fen and now 758 hectares (1873 acres) are managed as a nature reserve for wildlife and people.
The most diverse group of species is not the plants or birds, but the invertebrates and especially the insects. Three groups of insects each have over 1000 species, the flies (1893 species), the beetles (1527 species) and the moths (1083 species). These three groups alone make up more than 56 per cent of all the species found at Wicken Fen.
Look at the dataset for Wicken Fen here
We hope this project will lead to further collaborations with the National Trust.
