Insect species richness for each plant species and insect-plant interactions from the Database of Insects and their Food Plants [DBIF] version 2
bibliographic citation: Padovani, R., Ward, L., Smith, R.M., Pocock, M.J.O., Roy, D.B. (2020). Insect species richness for each plant species and insect-plant interactions from the Database of Insects and their Food Plants [DBIF] version 2. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/33a825f3-27cb-4b39-b59c-0f8182e8e2e4
description: This dataset consists of 4,397 insect species associated with 679 native plant species, 120 archaeophytes, and 234 neophytes from the Database of Insects and their Food Plants (DBIF). The DBIF details approximately 60,000 interactions between phytophagous insect (and mite) species and plants recorded in Great Britain over the last century, based on a wide variety of sources, including entomological journals and field guides. The data here represents a reduced subset of the full DBIF (13,277 interactions), only including interactions resolved to the species level (insect species x associated with host plant species y), records that have been expertly verified as reliable and included in previous large-scale analyses (Ward 1988; Ward & Spalding 1993; Ward et al. 1995; Ward et al. 2003), and records that are certain to have occurred in Great Britain. Any records originating from captive breeding studies are excluded. Finally, only plants with associated phylogenetic data and native status are included. Host plant distribution size is also included, in addition to a quantification of the distinctiveness of the insect communities found on a subset of the non-native plants. This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering National Capability.
provenance: ProvenanceStatement
  label: For a full description of all processes involved in data collection/generation see the supporting documentationsupplied with this data. In summary, the following processes were applied to the full DBIF dataset in order to generate this dataset: - Only data on 'higher' plants (seed plants and ferns) were included, using only insect-plant records that were expertly verified as reliable and included in previous large-scale analyses (Ward 1988; Ward & Spalding 1993; Ward et al. 1995; Ward et al. 2003) - Only records that were certain to have occurred in Great Britain were included, and any records originating from captive breeding studies were excluded - All records not at a species level were removed, and all sub-species/cultivar/variety information were 'upgraded' to the species level - Several sources were used to group together plant and insect species listed under different synonyms - Native status and introduction dates (for neophytes) were assigned to plants from several data sources, with plants classified as neophyte (non-native, arrived post-1500), archaeophyte (non-native, arrived pre-1500), or native (primarily Holocene colonists) - Distribution size was quantified as the number of hectads (10 x 10 km grid squares) that a plant was recorded in between 1987-1999 (within Great Britain including the Isle of Man -vice counties 1-112) - Phylogenetic relationships between plants were trimmed from a recently published global phylogeny of vascular plants, producing a custom phylogeny - Four phylogenetic isolation measures were calculated - Insect community distinctiveness was defined as the Chao-Sorensen abundance-based dissimilarity between the insect community on a given non-native host, and the insect pool found on native plants within the DBIF - Only plants that had been sufficiently sampled (hosted an insect richness ≥ 10) were included in dissimilarity calculations - All DBIF data sources were trimmed down to the article level by removing page number informati…
spatial: Location
temporal: PeriodOfTime
  start date: 1891-01-01
  end date: 1988-12-31
contact point: Padovani, R.
publisher: 04xw4m193
is referenced by: https://hdl.handle.net/10443/6327
is referenced by: VZS1-KK76
is referenced by: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.70225
is referenced by: s11252-024-01657-4
is referenced by: s41597-025-05487-7
is referenced by: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14132
subject: UK-SCAPE
subject: http://onto.nerc.ac.uk/CEHMD/topic/2
subject: conservation biology
subject: entomology
subject: macroecology
subject: phylogenetics
subject: phytophagous
subject: http://www.eionet.europa.eu/gemet/concept/2782
was generated by: UK-SCaPE
type: Dataset
available: 2020-07-02
landing page: https://doi.org/10.5285/33a825f3-27cb-4b39-b59c-0f8182e8e2e4
license: OGL-UK-3.0.ttl
access rights: UNRS
theme: http://onto.nerc.ac.uk/CEHMD/topic/2
distribution:
  access URL: https://data-package.ceh.ac.uk/data/33a825f3-27cb-4b39-b59c-0f8182e8e2e4
  license: OGL-UK-3.0.ttl
  access rights: UNRS
  format: https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/csv
creator: Padovani, R.
creator: Ward, L.
creator: Smith, R.M.
creator: Pocock, M.J.O.
creator: Roy, D.B.
language: en

Padovani, R.
type: Person
family name: Padovani
given name: Roberto
member: University of York

University of York
type: Organization

Padovani, R.
type: Person
family name: Padovani
given name: R.
member: University of York
holds role in time: role 6e5a868a5028016c

Ward, L.
type: Person
family name: Ward
given name: L.
member: 00pggkr55
holds role in time: role ebb170022d6de8d9

Smith, R.M.
type: Person
family name: Smith
given name: R.M.
member: 00pggkr55
holds role in time: role 7793162cba5e6027

Pocock, M.J.O.
type: Person
family name: Pocock
given name: M.J.O.
member: 00pggkr55
holds role in time: role 6ffceba3a52e7dfd

Roy, D.B.
type: Person
family name: Roy
given name: D.B.
member: 00pggkr55
holds role in time: role 29d6bb7b21253759

https://hdl.handle.net/10443/6327
type: Expression
bibliographic citation: Petsopoulos, D. (2023). Developing and validating the efficacy of DNA metabarcoding for nationwide insect biomonitoring schemes. Newcastle University [Ph. D. Thesis].

VZS1-KK76
type: Expression
bibliographic citation: Harrigan, F. (2024). Comparing Citizen Science and Emerging eDNA Methodologies in the Biomonitoring of Lowland Chalk Grasslands. [Queen Mary, University of London].

https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.70225
type: Expression
bibliographic citation: Wagner, M., Jefferson, R.G., Starr‐Keddle, R.E., Varga, S., Tatarenko, I., Westbury, D.B., & Hulmes, L. (2026). Biological Flora of Britain and Ireland: Geranium sylvaticum *. Journal of Ecology, 114(2).

s11252-024-01657-4
type: Expression
bibliographic citation: Frisk, C.A., & Hanslin, H.M. (2025). Optimizing plant species composition of green roofs for ecological functionality and biodiversity conservation. Urban Ecosystems, 28(2).

s41597-025-05487-7
type: Expression
bibliographic citation: Reji Chacko, M., Albouy, C., Altermatt, F., Casanelles-Abella, J., Brändle, M., Boussange, V., Campell, F., Ellis, W.N., Fopp, F., Gossner, M.M., Ho, H.-C., Joss, A., Kipf, P., Neff, F., Petrović, A., Prié, V., Tomanović, Ž., Zimmerli, N., & Pellissier, L. (2025). A species-level multi-trophic metaweb for Switzerland. Scientific Data, 12(1).

https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14132
type: Expression
bibliographic citation: Balfour, N.J., & Ratnieks, F.L.W. (2022). The disproportionate value of 'weeds' to pollinators and biodiversity. Journal of Applied Ecology, 59(5), 1209-1218.

UK-SCaPE
type: Grant
type: Activity
has grant number: NE/R016429/1