Citizen scientists survey butterflies as part of ‘World of Insects’ workshops
Can you identify your local butterfly species?
Could you imagine being part of a national (or even a global) monitoring team?
Through NGT’s Our World of Insects workshops and excursions we have started training volunteers to identify local butterflies and undertake surveys to gather long-term data. We are grateful to the Limestone Coast Landscape Board which has provided funding for the workshops through their Grass Roots Grants program.
The survey technique taught during the workshop series was originally developed in the UK in the 1970s and published as the Pollard Walk in 1977. This monitoring method/walk has been used extensively in the UK to monitor butterflies where many volunteers undertake these walks. Their data contributes to understanding the populations of butterflies both in their region with the UK and is also aggregated up to a national level.
Over the decades, this method has expanded into other countries around the world, including here on the Limestone Coast where the Penambol Conservation Park Butterfly Walk commenced in 2000. Monitoring has occurred at this site over the last 25 years now, sometimes even weekly. As a result, much data is now available to showcase the changes in abundance and seasonal emergence periods of butterflies in the lower South East region.
In a previous blog post, we discussed survey data on the Marbled Xenica butterfly. This kind of long-term information is valuable for many reasons, including understanding and better managing insects in our natural and agricultural ecosystems in the face of climate change. You can see below where the abundance of Marbled Xenica butterflies correlates to drought periods:
NOTE: blank years are years not surveyed
How will the Marbled Xenica population cope with its negative trend in the long term? With this in mind, NGT aims to collaborate with interested community groups (like our state body – Butterfly Conservation SA) to promote and hold butterfly ID sessions and train volunteers on how they could monitor their own site, so please make contact () if you are interested in knowing more.
World of Insect Workshops summary
The fifth World of Insects workshop was completed at the end of January. The main aim for the day was to give participants exposure to insects under the microscope, then training in how to undertake a Pollard Walk and to ID butterflies at two sites south of Mt Gambier.
Throughout this series we have learned that insects have some fascinating features. The antennae for example, of the male Feather-horned beetle (Rhipicera femorata) is something to behold, along with the male Emperor Gum Moth (Opodiphthera eucalypti). A male Emperor Gum moth can sense a female pheromone from several kilometres away using chemoreceptors (specialised sensory chemical receptors) in the fine filaments you can see below:
The Splendid Ochre (along with its cousin the Orange Ochre) will form part of the last event for the current World of Insects program in June.
One action we can do as landholders to help this species is to plant its larval food plant (Mat-rush – Lomandra longifolia) so the adults have somewhere to lay eggs and the caterpillars something to eat. We’ll be holding a planting day for this species coming into winter, so keep an ear out for the details in a few months. If you’d like to attend the planting day, please register with Jess by emailing .
This project has been supported by a Grass Roots Grant from the Limestone Coast Landscape Board
