Isle of Wight 5km distribution maps
Compiled by John Norton. Last updated 2 May 2025.
Introduction
These maps show the distribution of bryophyte taxa recorded on the Isle of Wight (VC10) plotted at 5km square (quadrant) resolution. The maps are derived from records in the British Bryological Society (BBS) database, administered by the Biological Records Centre (BRC) together with those submitted but not yet incorporated and those not yet submitted up to April 2025.
The maps were generated from QGIS using the Tom.bio plugin developed for the Field Studies Council. Note that the captions on the maps are automatically generated from the taxon list used, and the plugin removes hyphens and punctuation. See the introduction to the Hampshire hectad maps for more information on how the maps were produced and for acknowledgements.
The coloured shading on the maps shows the date class in which the taxon was most recently recorded in each hectad. The first three date classes follow those used in The Atlas of British and Irish Bryophytes, published in 2014, except that the first class (grey shade) indicates records made before 1970 rather than before 1950 (1970 is now the cut-off date for vice-county records becoming bracketed in the census catalogue). Records added after the publication of the atlas (i.e. 2014 onwards) are indicated by the yellow shade.
The maps are derived from a total of 14,953 mappable records in the database. Since the previous update in October 2021 the number of taxa mapped has increased from 377 to 392. This is partly due to taxonomic revisions of some species or to additional maps for aggregate taxa being included, but there have also been some newly discovered species added to the vice-county list. The total number of species or well-defined infraspecific taxa recorded for the Isle of Wight now stands at 387. Recent new finds include Aloina ambigua, Bryum caespiticium, Bryum sauteri, Dicranella howei and Riccia crystallina, although some of these have not been vouchered so will not as yet be added to the vice-county census catalogue.
Please contact John Norton if you notice any errors or can fill gaps by submitting records.