Associate Director of Recording and Monitoring Butterfly Conservation Wareham, England, United Kingdom
UK butterflies are among the most comprehensively monitored insect taxa in the world, with spatially-extensive data on population size and distribution extent dating back to the 1970s. These data, gathered by tens of thousands of volunteers through community science projects, enable the calculation of robust long-term species trends and provide a detailed and balanced assessment of biodiversity change. In this presentation, I will introduce the community science projects, summarise the results of 50 years of monitoring UK butterflies, and highlight the use of these data in biodiversity conservation and ecological research.
