Butterflies in the United Kingdom: habitat specialists and species of the wider countryside
Trends in butterflies: habitat specialists and species of the wider countryside in the UK.
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These statistics on butterflies in the United Kingdom contribute to a suite of indicators due to be updated in November this year - the UK Biodiversity Indicators; earlier data availability allows their release ahead of that publication. Two measures of annual butterfly population abundance are presented: the first for habitat specialist butterflies (species strongly associated with semi-natural habitats such as chalk downland); the second for butterflies of the wider countryside (found in both semi-natural habitats and the wider countryside). The release also includes 3 additional measures (a UK ‘all-species’ index and 2 habitat specific measures – one on farmland and one in woodland) that do not form part of the formal assessment. All 5 measures are multi-species indices compiled by Butterfly Conservation (BC), the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) from data collated through the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) and the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey (WCBS). The indicators use data from butterfly transect sites from the UKBMS and additional randomly selected plots from the WCBS. Further details of the methods used to compile the indicators and assess change can be found on the UKBMS website. More information about this indicator is available on the JNCC website.
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Last updated 2 February 2024 + show all updates
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Butterflies Development Plan added.
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2022 release published.
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CSV title attachments amended.
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Annual update.
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Minor adjustments made to ensure all bar charts are visible on pdf statistical release attachment.
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New publication including data up to 2020. In addition edits made to the wording on the home page and document titles of the attachments.
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some amendments required on one of the charts
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Unaccessible attachment removed.
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Accessible pdf document added as an additional attachment.
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Annual update.
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2018 data published
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Updated indicators published for 1976 to 2017
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Butterfly trend data up to 2016 published
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First published.