Research into Invertebrates
Status, Distribution and Ecology
The Northmoor Trust has expertise in a number of invertebrate groups. These include important indicator groups for site assessment, such as Snails, Dragonflies, Hoverflies and Spiders, but also 'neglected' invertebrate groups such as Millipedes, Centipedes and Woodlice. For many years, the Northmoor Trust had strong links with the Oxfordshire Biological Records Centre (OBRC) which collates biological records for the modern administrative county of Oxfordshire, and has collaborated with a number of projects.
These include surveying poorly known sites with the County Recorder and the identification (determination) of preserved specimens collected and/or stored by the OBRC. This is an important task since the reliability of site assessment stands or falls on the accuracy of species determinations. Key invertebrate sites within the county have been identified, but equally importantly the distribution and habitat preferences of many scarce and/or threatened species are much better understood. The data held by the OBRC has been used to produce a number of County Atlases and other papers on the distribution of Oxfordshire's invertebrates.
The modern county of Oxfordshire
The modern administrative county of Oxfordshire was created during the local government reorganisation of 1974 when the north-west part of Berkshire (Watsonian vice-county 22) was amalgamated with old Oxfordshire (vice-county 23).
Oxfordshire is dominated by the River Thames, which forms the approximate boundary between the two old vice-counties, and its tributaries. Like most counties in the lowland south-east, much of the countryside is dominated by agriculture, with just 8% of land considered to be of high conservation value. This is mainly deciduous woodland but river-side meadows and calcareous fens are particularly well represented in the county.
The underlying geology ranges from the Jurassic in the north to the Cretaceous in the south-east. The Cotswolds (Oolitic limestones), the Midvale Ridge (Corallian limestones) and the Chilterns and Berkshire Downs (Chalk), form three north-west facing escarpments. Between these escarpments are the low-lying Thames and Avon Clay Vales.
