This is the first book to describe the results from a British scheme to monitor butterflies. The Monitoring Scheme, initiated in 1976, is based on frequent counts at some 90 sites throughout Britain. The combined efforts of amateurs and professionals have thus produced a dataset with no equivalent elswhere in the world. Contents include: the current status of British butterflies; aims and methods of monitoring; sites and site selection; fluctuations in numbers; colonisation and extinction; migration; and the effects of weather on numbers.
The current status of British butterflies; aims and methods of monitoring; validation of the monitoring method; sites, site selection and national monitoring; local distribution of butterflies; fluctuation in numbers; colonization and extinction; effects of weather on numbers; migration; the flight periods of butterflies; some butterflies of the wider countryside; some rare and localized butterflies; site studies; population ecology; climatic warming.
' ... one of the most comprehensive and readable accounts of a survey scheme ever published.' Antenna 'This book is well laid out with clear graphs and tables ... a very well presented examination of current work and a valuable contribution to our developing understanding of this best studied group of insects.' British Journal of Entomology and Natural History