Set up survey and form for Xylella project

This is a citizen science project involving CEH, RHS, Leafhopper Recording Scheme and possibly other partners. It focuses on asking people to record 'cuckoo-spit bugs' (Philaena spumarius) on plants. These bugs are capable of transmitting Xylella bacteria between plants, and there is concern that new strains of Xylella may spread to the UK. Info at: https://planthealthportal.defra.gov.uk/assets/uploads/Xf-Plant-Pest-Factsheet-2017v2.pdf

Main contact so far has been with Alan Stewart of the recording scheme.

Timescale: ideally needs to be available for public use by the beginning of May 2019.

First requirement is for a URL to be agreed for the recording form. @kitenetter to liaise with Alan Stewart over a suitable URL based on project name

Requirements so far identified:

Survey will focus on recording the leafhoppers, so that for each record of a hopper, the plant species it was on will be recorded, as an attribute of the hopper record.

We will need to provide a termlist of plants that recorders can use for this, and the list needs to include garden plants (so UKSI will not be sufficient). RHS (for the garden plants) and Forest Research (for the trees) are producing lists that they think are likely to be workable by most amateurs but at the same time at sufficient resolution to be useful to the project. The combined list will probably be about 1,000 taxa (at both specific and generic levels).

Alongside the drop-down list, there needs to be a free-text field so that recorders can enter a name that is not on the list.

There are some other fields which it would be useful to include in a bespoke recording form that would be particular to the project – for example, whether or not recorders have been on one of the planned training courses that we intend to run; what identification aids they have used; etc.

@kitenetter to request full list of required attributes from Alan.

BiologicalRecordsCentre / iRecord

Set up survey and form for Xylella project #528