USE OF DATA
In addition to maintaining the scientific collections, Luomus collects, preserves and studies databases consisting of organism observations with no accompanying specimen. These databases give information of changes in species distributions, which in turn tells us about changes in the environment.
The surveys and monitoring efforts coordinated by Luomus produce unique data for research, and they are also invaluable information sources for the environmental administration. They hold a key position in environmental protection.
These observations are collected both by researchers in surveys and monitoring efforts as well as through collating and coordinating observation data produced by volunteer hobbyists or by casual observation. The internationally unique, long term series of bird observations, the bird ringing register and the distribution database of Finnish vascular plants are the most important observation data.
Plant surveys – the plant atlases of europe and finland
Two of the most important long-term survey projects coordinated by Luomus are the Atlas Florae Europaeae (AFE), the international survey of vascular plants, and the Atlas of the Distribution of Vascular Plants in Finland. The primary goal of both projects is to produce maps describing plant distribution.
Bird counts and surveys
Bird counts are among the most significant and long-term species monitoring projects coordinated by Luomus. The work of volunteers in these monitoring projects is invaluable, as more than a thousand volunteers contribute to the monitoring every year. Luomus coordinates many bird surveys, of which the winter bird survey and the Finnish Breeding Bird Atlas are prime examples.
The winter bird count is a national bird monitoring project launched in the winter of 1956/57. It surveys the distribution and size of the populations of winter birds in various habitats in different parts of Finland as well as changes to the bird population over the course of the winter, both from one winter to the next and over a longer time span. The goal of the Bird Atlas is to determine the current distributions of bird species that nest in Finland as well as to study the changes to those distributions. Bird distribution data has been collected in Finland in 1974–79 (1st atlas), 1986–89 (2nd atlas) and 2006–2010 (3rd atlas).
The European breeding bird atlas shows changes in our environment
The bird monitoring group at Luomus has many national and international research projects. The observations are also used by the European Bird Census Council, EBCC. A significant milestone was reached in autumn 2020, when EBCC published the second European Bird Breeding Atlas. The atlas is one of the largest citizen science projects on biodiversity in history. It reveals, among other things, that the distribution of birds has moved two km north every year for the past 30 years. This is a sign of climate change affecting the birds in Europe.
Bird and bat ringing
Johan Axel Palmén, Professor in Zoology at the University of Helsinki, started the formal ringing of birds in Finland in 1913. Since this activity began, 12,7 million birds have been ringed in Finland and a total of nearly 1,5 million recoveries and resightings have been made. In 2020, a record-breaking 318 349 birds were ringed in Finland and 42 252 recoveries and resightings were reported. The ringing data is accessible online on the Luomus-coordinated Finnish Biodiversity Faculty Info -pages (laji.fi).
Bird ringing provides lots of information, including age, sex, wing length, weight, fat reserves and moulting stage. Furthermore, ringing time and place are saved as accurately as possible. Ringing data are used to study population ecology and environmental changes, among other things, in both national and international studies. The exact ringing place can be used for land-use planning for the protection of nesting sites of birds of prey and species of Annex I of the Birds Directive. The ringing activity in Finland is based on voluntary work, and ringers often devote all their free time to ringing. There are currently over 700 ringers in Finland.
Apart from birds, over 4000 bats have been ringed in Finland. The most ringed species are Daubenton’s bat (1 842 individuals) and Brandt’s bat (1 057 individuals). Over 400 individuals of both Brown long-eared bats and Northern bats have been ringed.