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United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme: collated indices 2011

Collated indices are a relative measure of butterfly abundance across monitored sites in the UK, calculated from data collected by the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS). Collated indices are calculated annually for each individual butterfly species that has been recorded on five or more sites in that year. Based on this criterion collated indices have been calculated for the entire UKBMS time series from 1976 to the current year for the majority of species. For some rarer species the time series starts in a later year due to lack of data. Collated indices are calculated using a statistical model that accounts for missing data. The number of sites for each species ranges from 5 to several hundred and varies from year to year. Since 2008 more than 1,000 sites have been monitored across the UK each year. Collated indices are calculated so that we can determine how butterfly populations are changing over time across the UK. This data can be used, for example, to determine where to target conservation efforts and to measure the condition of the UK countryside.

Butterflies are recognised as important indicators of biodiversity and environmental change (e.g. as official UK Biodiversity Indicators), and have been used in numerous research studies to understand the impacts of changes in climate and the extent and condition of habitats.

Although the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and Butterfly Conservation (BC) are responsible for the calculation and interpretation of the Collated indices, the collection of the data used in their creation is ultimately reliant on a large volunteer community. The UKBMS is funded by a consortium of organisations led by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

This dataset is updated annually and more recent versions of the UKBMS collated indices are available. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/ff55462e-38a4-4f30-b562-f82ff263d9c3

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Identification info

Metadata Language
English (en)
Character set
utf8
Dataset Reference Date ()
2012-04-01
Identifier
CEH:EIDC: / 1329909998347
Identifier
https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/ff55462e-38a4-4f30-b562-f82ff263d9c3
Identifier
doi: / 10.5285/ff55462e-38a4-4f30-b562-f82ff263d9c3
Other citation details
Botham, M., Roy, D., Brereton, T., Middlebrook, I., Randle, Z. (2012). United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme: collated indices 2011. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre 10.5285/ff55462e-38a4-4f30-b562-f82ff263d9c3
  UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
  Butterfly Conservation
  Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Botham, M.
  Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - Roy, D.
  Butterfly Conservation - Brereton, T.
  Butterfly Conservation - Middlebrook, I.
  Butterfly Conservation - Randle, Z.
  NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre
  NERC Environmental Information Data Centre
  UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme
Maintenance and update frequency
annually
Maintenance note
Main updates occur annually at the end of the year following data collection and collation at Butterfly Conservation.
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 ()
  • Species Distribution
GeoNames
  • United Kingdom
  • England
  • Scotland
  • Wales
  • Northern Ireland
Keywords
  • Biodiversity
  • annual
  • Lepidoptera
  • butterflies
Limitations on Public Access
otherRestrictions
Other constraints
no limitations
Use constraints
otherRestrictions
Other constraints
Licence terms and conditions apply
Use constraints
otherRestrictions
Other constraints
If you reuse this data, you should cite: Botham, M., Roy, D., Brereton, T., Middlebrook, I., Randle, Z. (2012). United Kingdom Butterfly Monitoring Scheme: collated indices 2011. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre https://doi.org/10.5285/ff55462e-38a4-4f30-b562-f82ff263d9c3
Spatial representation type
textTable
Topic category
  • Biota
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Begin date
1976-04-01
End date
2011-09-01
 
Code
OSGB 1936 / British National Grid

Distribution Information

Data format
  • Comma-separated values (CSV) ()

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Quality Scope
dataset
Other
dataset

Report

Dataset Reference Date ()
2010-12-08
Statement
Collated indices are produced using a series of statistical models on butterfly transect counts recorded by a volunteer network. These indices are a relative measure of each species' abundance across the UK compared to the baseline in 1976. The statistics are presented as log10 values. These values are centred around an arbitrary value of 2 as a mean for the time series in order to help show which years are below or above average (a technique used in other biodiversity indicators).

Metadata

File identifier
ff55462e-38a4-4f30-b562-f82ff263d9c3 XML
Metadata Language
English (en)
Character set
ISO/IEC 8859-1 (also known as Latin 1)
Resource type
dataset
Hierarchy level name
dataset
Metadata Date
2021-06-25T18:44:49
Metadata standard name
UK GEMINI
Metadata standard version
2.3
  Environmental Information Data Centre
Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg , Lancaster , LA1 4AP , UK
 
 

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