Embargo – 00:01 Tuesday 16 June 2009
Press release issued by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology - 2009/7
Britain to celebrate a world-leading conservation success story
On 16 June 2009 the 25th anniversary of the Large Blue butterfly's reintroduction to Britain will be celebrated in Somerset, now the location of the largest concentration of Large Blues in the world. During the same week a major peer-reviewed scientific paper on the reintroduction of the project will be published.
Sir David Attenborough will be among the speakers at the celebration event, which will be attended by many leaders of the UK's scientific and conservation communities.
Professor Lord May of Oxford, recent President of The Royal Society and former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, said: "The recovery of the Large Blue butterfly is the world's largest-scale, longest-running successful conservation project involving an insect. It illustrates perfectly how the application of sound science can be used to solve some of the apparently intractable problems that face conservationists worldwide today."
The Large Blue is one of the world’s most threatened species. The British reintroduction was based on major scientific breakthroughs, and the development of a pioneering model for conservation which is now being used to restore rare butterfly species across Europe.
Professor Jeremy Thomas, a Fellow at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), led the reintroduction programme with colleague David Simcox. Professor Thomas said: "The success of this project is testimony to what large scale collaboration between scientists, conservationists and volunteers can achieve. Its greatest legacy is that it demonstrates that we can reverse the decline of globally-threatened insect species once we understand the driving factors."
The Large Blue has an unusual life-cycle, which made its conservation difficult. When the caterpillar is three weeks old it tricks red ants into believing it is one of their own grubs and is taken underground to be placed with the ant brood. The caterpillar spends the next ten months feeding on the grubs before pupating in the nest the following year and then emerging to crawl above ground as a butterfly.
Despite over 50 years of effort to halt its decline, the Large Blue butterfly was pronounced extinct in Britain in 1979. Its reintroduction in 1984 was based on the discovery that Large Blue caterpillars can only survive in the nest of one particular species of red ant, Myrmica sabuleti. Changes in countryside management were found to be responsible for the extinction. Alterations in grazing coupled with myxomatosis in rabbits left grassland too tall and shady for the heat-loving Myrmica sabuleti.
Today suitable habitat has been restored to more than 50 former sites, and the butterfly can be found on 33 of them in the south-west of England. Other rare species of plants, insects and birds now benefit from the same conservation work as the Large Blues because they had suffered from the same changes in agricultural practices. This is a tribute to a major conservation programme underpinned by innovative science and implemented by a determined and broad partnership of scientists and conservation bodies including CEH, Natural England, Somerset Wildlife Trust, National Trust, University of Oxford, Butterfly Conservation, J&F Clark Trust and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.
Network Rail has also contributed to the reintroduction by working with CEH and Natural England to develop some of the largest colonies in northern Europe. As part of Network Rail's engineering works on two sites, CEH designed plans that created optimum habitats for Large Blues, at a net financial saving for Network Rail.
The success of this project led to a major, European-funded research programme, MacMan. It used the approach pioneered by the Large Blue project to understand and then conserve four other globally threatened species of Large Blue, which exist outside of Britain, across Europe.
Ends
Notes to Editors
For further information contact the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology press office.
A separate press release on the major peer-reviewed scientific paper has been issued.
The celebration has been arranged in the middle of the Large Blue flight season.
Thousands of enthusiasts of all ages have been able to see and photograph the Large Blue first-hand thanks to the Somerset Wildlife Trust's annual open weekend at Green Down. The National Trust's Collard Hill site also hosts a large colony of the butterfly and is always open to the public. The flight season is starting now and National Trust staff and volunteers will be on the site every day over the next few weeks to share advice on how to track the butterflies and photograph them. A Large Blue butterfly hotline has been set up to update visitors and naturalists to the butterfly's movements on Collard Hill: 01793 817732. A special open day is being held on the site on the longest day of the year, Sunday 21 June 2009.
Professor Jeremy Thomas is Professor of Ecology at the Department of Zoology of the University of Oxford, UK, and a Professorial Fellow of both the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, and New College, Oxford. He completed the majority of his work on the Large Blue while he was employed as a scientist at CEH.
The Large Blue project is led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, part of the Natural Environment Research Council. Its partners are: Butterfly Conservation, Gloucester Wildlife Trust, J&F Clark Trust, National Trust, Natural England, Network Rail, Oxford University, Somerset Wildlife Trust, and Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust. Additional contributors are: Alaska Environmental, Bicton Agricultural College, Dean & Dyball, Habitat, Holland and Barrett, Hydrex, ICI, Swedish Nature Conservancy, Otter Nurseries, Uppsala University, World Wildlife Fund. Over 160 people, including private individuals, have made their mark on the project.
The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's Centre of Excellence for integrated research in the land and freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the atmosphere. CEH is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and employs more than 450 people at five major sites in England, Scotland and Wales with an overall budget of about £35m. CEH tackles complex environmental challenges to deliver practicable solutions so that future generations can benefit from a rich and healthy environment.
