Introduction

Suffolk Biodiversity Information Service (SBIS) is Suffolk’s biological records centre. We look after the county’s wildlife data – collecting it, checking it, curating it and making it available to anyone who needs it.

Our database holds over 6.5 million species records, built up over decades by Suffolk’s network of expert and amateur naturalists. From rare plants and ancient woodland to bats, beetles and breeding birds, it’s one of the most comprehensive wildlife datasets of any English county.

We’re based at The Hold, Ipswich – home of Suffolk’s archives – and we’re hosted by Suffolk County Council. We’re a not-for-profit service, independent in the advice we give and the data we hold.

What we do

We collect and curate wildlife records. Records come to us from hundreds of volunteer naturalists, county recorders, partner organisations and national recording schemes. We check and verify them, add them to our database, and keep them safe for the long term.

We share data with the people who need it. Ecologists, planners, local authorities, conservation organisations and researchers use our data every day to make decisions about Suffolk’s natural environment. We can provide tailored data searches for specific sites or species, and our full dataset is publicly available through the NBN Atlas.

We support biological recording in Suffolk. We work with volunteer recorders, county recorders and naturalist societies to encourage more recording across the county and improve data quality. We help ensure that the decisions which shape Suffolk’s landscapes are grounded in solid evidence about what lives there.

Our data flow

The diagram below shows how records flow into and out of our database.