Lepidoptera Records up to April 2010

Quality Control

The data has been scrutinised by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Entomological Society as part of a validation process. This has resulted in the correction of obvious input errors (after reference to the primary data source) and highlighted where records required additional information in order to have a high confidence in their accuracy (for example, species where genitalia examination is needed for accurate identification).

Any records with a low level of confidence remaining after validation procedures have been excluded. It is expected that following additional validation checks some of the excluded records will be incorporated in future updates of this dataset.

Given the validation procedures and cautionary approach which has been adopted it is considered that there is a reasonable level of confidence in the accuracy of the dataset but the above comments regarding the precision of the records should be particularly borne in mind when using this dataset.

Method steps

1. Records forming the dataset have arisen from a variety of sources. These include local naturalists specialising in recording Lepidoptera, DWT staff and volunteers, and members of the general public.
   
   For a very small number of sites the data is the result of repeated surveys specifically for Lepidoptera within those sites over varying periods of time, using techniques such as light trapping. However, the majority of the records are incidental records made during other survey work or ad-hoc records provided by members of the public.

The data relates to the administrative county of Derbyshire. Approximately 90% of the records are site specific, with most of these sites being Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Reserves, or sites which are designated Local Wildlife Sites. As the Local Wildlife Sites system does not currently operate within the Peak District National Park (PDNP) many of the records are from outside of the National Park, the exception being those which relate to Trust Reserves within the PDNP.

Because the records are mainly site based, most have been entered onto the Trust’s database using a centroid grid reference for the site. This has resulted in approximately 90% of the records having a precision of 8 or 6 figure grid references. With some sites spanning more than 1 tetrad, and more rarely 1 hectad, some records will invariably have been assigned to an incorrect tetrad or hectad.