Long-term population trends in widespread British moths

Impacts of Climate Change on Lepidoptera Species and Communities

“…Forecasts predict increasing abundance of most species, only the Pieris brassicae was seen declining. In contrast with these results, Conrad et al (2004) conducted a TRIM analysis ; Van Strien et al, 2001) on a 35-year time series of 338 Macrolepidoptera species and showed that the individual numbers of 54°% of the species had decreased. 24°% of the species showed a stable population and strong increase in the individual numbers was shown by only 6 species.…”

Awareness and Priorities for the Future

“…The sampling regime target was for 1 day (Friday, but with fl exibility for weather and individual convenience) for 36 weeks (March-November) using standard traps. As part of a wide series of investigations to investigate declines of larger moths in Britain (Conrad et al 2004 ), this citizen science project seeks to determine which garden habitat and landscape features most strongly infl uence moth species richness, total abundance, and abundance of individual species, so that a series of garden features -such as presence of lawn, pond, long grass, native species hedgerow, trees, wildfl owers, individual (named) nectar or larval food plants were recorded (Bates et al 2014 ) and gardens categorised as 'rural', 'suburban' or 'urban'. Effects of urbanisation differed for species categorised as increasing and those assessed as declining, although both categories showed an overall negative relationship with urban intensifi cation.…”

Adult longevity and its relationship with conservation status in European butterflies

“…The latter group includes a disproportionally high number of threatened species due to their stricter habitat and host plant requirements (Hodgson 1993;Purvis et al 2000;Fontaine et al 2007). Another well-established pattern relates to life history and voltinism, where univoltine species and/or those overwintering in the egg or larval stage are more susceptible to climate change, which has recently become one of the most serious drivers of butterly declines (Hodgson 1993;Conrad et al 2004;Mattila et al 2006;Nylin and Bergström 2009). In addition, low mobility was typically reported for threatened butterlies (Kotiaho et al 2005;Mattila et al 2006;Nylin and Bergström 2009;Habel et al 2015).…”