ANNUAL REPORT 2005 BLANK UKBMS Annual report for 2005 THE UKBMS CONTENTS The UKBMS 1 Welcome to the first report of the United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS).The UKBMS is UKBMS aims 1 a recently formed merger of the long-running Butterfly Contents 1 Monitoring Scheme (BMS) run by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) with Butterfly Contacts 1 Conservation’s (BC) co-ordination of ‘independent’ transects.The report replaces the former BMS report Meet the team 2 to recorders and is jointly produced by CEH and BC. Summary of trends 3 Changes in the abundance of butterflies throughout the Map of all transects 5 United Kingdom have been monitored using transects Ministerial launch of UKBMS and new since 1976. Over the past 30 years, recorders have 7 made over 140,000 weekly visits to 1228 separate UKBMS website sites, walking almost 350,000 km and counting around New version of Transect Walker released 8 10.5 million butterflies! Origins and growth of butterfly transect 9 The UKBMS is based on a well-established and monitoring enjoyable recording method and has produced UKBMS project and progress 12 important insights into almost all aspects of butterfly ecology. Butterflies as biodiversity indicators 15 Using transect data in conservation research 16 The UKBMS is run as a partnership between the CEH, - round up BC and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee Site focus: Changes in the butterflies of (JNCC) with active involvement of the National Trust, 17 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Monks Wood the Forestry Commission and several wildlife trusts Species focus: Expansion of Silver-spotted and local authorities. 23 Skipper Butterfly monitoring is entering into a new and exciting Notes from a recorder 27 phase in the United Kingdom. It is currently undergoing major re-development and expansion through the UKBMS publications 2005/6 29 UKBMS project funded for three years (2005-2008) by References 30 a multi-agency consortium led by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and Appendix I: Collated index graphs i including the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), Appendix II: Summary of changes 2004-2005 vii English Nature (EN), Environment & Heritage Service (EHS), Forestry Commission (FC), Scottish Executive, Environment and Rural Affairs (SEERAD), and Scottish CONTACTS Natural Heritage (SNH). For general enquiries: The UKBMS was officially launched on 15th May 2006, Transect co-ordinator, Butterfly Conservation, Manor along with its website at www.ukbms.org, at a meeting Yard, East Lulworth, Dorset, BH20 5QP.Tel:01929 at the Royal Society in London. 400209, email: transect@butterfly-conservation .org This year for the first time we are able to produce Nick Greatorex-Davies, CEH Monks Wood,Abbots collated indices for 46 species (more than in any Ripton, Huntingdon, PE27 2LS. previous report) by using data from the extensive Tel:01487 772401, email: [email protected] UKBMS dataset. Data requests: UKBMS aims Dr David Roy, CEH Monks Wood,Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon, PE27 2LS.Tel 01487 772456,email: The primary aims of the UKBMS are: [email protected] or [email protected] To assess and interpret changes in the abundance and status of UK butterflies. Dr Tom Brereton, Butterfly Conservation, Manor Yard, To assess the impact of local factors such as East Lulworth, Dorset, BH20 5QP.Tel:01929 400209, habitat change and management on butterfly email: [email protected] populations. To provide novel information on almost all Much information on the UKBMS can be found our aspects of butterfly ecology. website at: www.ukbms.org This report should be cited as: Greatorex-Davies, J.N., Brereton,T.M., Roy D.B. & Wigglesworth,T. 2006. United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme Report for 2005. CEH Huntingdon. UKBMS Annual report for 2005 MEET THE TEAM David Roy has been based at CEH Monks Wood since 1994. He took over from Dorian Moss as manager of the BMS in 2003 and is now based in the Biological Records Centre (BRC). He is an ecologist who specialises in data analysis. He manages the UKBMS database and his research focuses on the impacts of climate change. Tom Brereton has worked for Butterfly Conservation (BC) since 1997 after completing his PhD on the ecology of the Grizzled Skipper (Pyrgus malvae).At BC he is head of monitoring. In recent years Tom has put a considerable amount of effort into analysing butterfly transect data with respect to benefits, or otherwise, to butterflies of agri-environment schemes.This work has been carried out under contract to Defra (and formerly MAFF) Tom Wigglesworth has been working for Butterfly Conservation since 2001. He spent three years working on threatened species projects, in particular the Large Blue (Glaucopsyche arion), Heath Fritillary (Mellicta athalia) and Pearl-bordered Fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne), before taking on the role of Butterfly Monitoring Ecologist. He was be the overall co-ordinator of the UKBMS and the first point of contact for recorders and local transect co-ordinators, however since this report was drafted he has now left BC to take up a post elsewhere. Nick Greatorex-Davies has been co-ordinator of the BMS based in the BRC since 1995 when he took over from Tina Yates. He has worked at Monks Wood as an entomologist since 1974 where he has specialised in moths and butterflies. His role in the future will be to develop the quality control and data validation side of butterfly monitoring. Val Burton has been based in the BRC at Monks Wood since 1971. Her involvement with the BMS really began in 1990 when she took over the task of data entry each autumn. Her speed and accuracy in data entry has made her an invaluable part of the team. Francis Rowland started work with CEH in 2000, and joined BRC in 2003.Although he has a background in Environmental Science, he works as a web developer, producing and managing several websites of key importance to BRC projects. Most recently, he was responsible for the production of the UKBMS website (http://www.ukbms.org/). Since the first draft of this report was written Francis has left CEH to take up a post elsewhere. Katie Cruickshanks joined BC in April 2006 after completing a PhD in ecology at Southampton University. In her role as wider countryside field researcher, Katie is responsible for planning and developing the pilot studies for the wider countryside monitoring scheme. Over the next two years Katie will be conducting field surveys and coordinating volunteers to determine an appropriate design for the new scheme. Peter Rothery has been based at CEH Monks Wood since 1995. He is a biometrician specializing in the application of statistical methods and mathematical models in ecology. He collaborates with David Roy on the analysis of the BMS data. Since this report was first drafted Francis Rowland and Tom Wigglesworth have left CEH and BC respectively to take up posts elsewhere. Obviously this is a blow to the rest of the team but we wish them both well for the future. In due course others will take over their roles. 2 UKBMS Annual report for 2005 SUMMARY OF THE 2005 SEASON Summary of weather on 2004/2005 temperature was slightly below average. Despite being In the following summary of the weather for 2005 we sunny across the UK May and August were relatively have tried to pick out features most likely to have cooler months although still above average. influence butterfly numbers (e.g. focusing on weather variables in particular months or periods), which are In summary; it was a dry year overall with some sunny likely to be of greatest importance for butterflies and months during the butterfly season, though the which may help in the interpretation of the butterfly important months of June and July had only average results for 2005.This information was summarised from sunshine and was low for Scotland in June and for the weather statistics supplied on the Met. Office web Northern Ireland from June to October. It was a very site where more detail can be found: warm year overall with temperatures for all months up http://www.met-office.gov.uk/climate/uk/2005/index.html. to and including October being well above average. Rainfall:The November 2004 to March 2005 rainfall was An above average year for butterflies the driest for England and Wales since the winter of 2005 was overall an above average year for butterflies. It 1975/76. Rainfall for the rest of the year remained below ranked 11th out of the 30 years of monitoring (1976- average in England and Wales for all months except April 2005) (Figure 1), and was on a par with the previous two and October. Scotland and Northern Ireland had high years which ranked 10th and 12th respectively. rainfall in May, and was also above average for Scotland in Butterflies produced a very mixed response with no June and August. group of species showing a particularly negative or positive result. Had the months of June and July also had Sunshine: May was a sunny month throughout the UK, as above average sunshine we would have expected a much were August and September, (except Northern Ireland). greater response from butterflies in terms of numbers of June and July were mostly average months for sunshine summer flying species. but June was particularly poor in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in fact for Northern Ireland all months from June Similar numbers of increases and decreases to October had below average sunshine. March also had Collated indices were produced for 46 species. Similar poor sunshine values. numbers of species showed increases as decreases.