How to build and maintain your pan-species list, for a person or a site. Packed with information and tips, this book is also a one-stop-shop for biological recorders in the twenty-first century.

Pan-species listing is a brilliant method to keep track of a lifetime of natural history sightings. A personal list, not just of birds but including every moth, beetle, lichen, sea-spider, liverwort, fungus, slime mould, cetacean… anything and everything, all the species you’ve seen. The list is maintained as part of an online community, following your progress in a fun and gently competitive way.

But pan-species listing is not just a game; it generates huge amounts of good quality biological data, while providing a framework for the next generation of naturalists to become experts themselves. This book reveals why the approach was dreamt up, as well as how to do it, what the benefits are and how you too can realise them. The 37 taxonomic classes used on the Pan-Species Listing website each have a section showing which texts, websites, equipment, online groups and information are needed to get started. Along with a detailed section on biological recording and fieldcraft, they make this a very handy guide for those that don’t necessarily want to list.

Altogether this is a crucial text for navigating the world of natural history and biological recording in the twenty-first century. The book is suitable for anyone who wishes to take part in pan-species listing but also those with an interest in biological recording, natural history, fieldwork and fieldcraft, bioblitzes, survey and monitoring, conservation ecology, record handling and analysing large lists of species.