butterfly monitoring: experiences with citizen scientists chris van swaay, de vlinderstichting /...
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Butterfly Monitoring: experiences with citizen scientists
Chris van Swaay,
De Vlinderstichting / Dutch Butterfly Conservation
Butterfly Conservation Europe
Statistics Netherlands (CBS)Thousands of volunteers
Why Butterfly Monitoring?
• Butterflies are good indicators for biodiversity, attractive, easy to count;
• After birds the second group that offers possibilities for large scale trend detection with the help of volunteers, both on a local, national and European level.
• And it’s fun!
Why volunteers?
Counts made by volunteers help the conservation of butterflies directly by:
• Collection of local data on changes in the trend of butterflies, which can be used immediately for conservation at the local level;
• Combined on a higher level the results can be used to in nature conservation of a state or country;
• On a European scale it helps directing conservation efforts.
The start
• Ernie Pollard started the first BMS in the UK in 1976
Count a transectof 5 m wide in sections of 50m
Simple method:Counts are made in a 5x5x5m box
Online recording
Easy access to all your transects
Easy and fast input
From national trends to a European trend
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1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010
Inde
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rst
year
=100
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FranceThe NetherlandsSpain - CataloniaUnited Kingdom
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1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010
Inde
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+ 9 other countries
European species trends
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1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010
Inde
x (1
990=
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1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010
Inde
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990=
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1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010
Inde
x (1
990=
100)
European Grassland Butterfly Indicator
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1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010
Butterfly Conservation Europe / Statistics Netherlands
Volunteers
• With the help of volunteers it is possible to do butterfly monitoring in an affordable way;
• It gives a basis for the protection of butterflies in our society: “Our butterflies in the nature reserve next to our village are doing bad/better/well!”
• But most of all: it is great fun!!!
How to find volunteers
How to keep volunteers
• Butterfly magazines• Butterfly days• Websites• Take them seriously
Make work easy: a manual to support the volunteers
• Detailed description of the transects and counts;
• What to do when there are problems?
• Each year a report with results is distributed to all participants
Keep volunteers motivated: annual report to the recorders
• Results• News• Features
Example Catalunya
• >50 sites• Rich in species• Catalunya takes
own responsibility
• Financial support from Junta
Catalan butterflymonitoring magazine Cynthia
Number of transects in NL
Overview over German butterfly
transects (November 2007)
Butterfly pictures
Butterfly pictures taken by transect walkers; ordered by geographical region (available online)
Quality of the recordersand their data
• Strict controll of the data• Check distribution with
atlas data• Check of flight period• With online recording
this can be done immediately
• Paper input is checked in winter
• Support and ‘controll of the controllers’ by CBS (Statistics Netherlands)
Special attention to difficult species
• 1976: start of the first Butterfly MonitoringScheme in the UK
• Well founded by many scientific papers• Now at least 3000 transects in 15 countries• Every year our European volunteers
count once around the world (40.000 km)!• The Dutch BMS alone generates 200 000
records each year
Butterfly Monitoringavailable and routinely collected
Butterfly MonitoringSpatial coverage
• New countries join in every year
• Most of them done on a routine basis