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Short Abstract

Citizen science biodiversity monitoring can gather long-term data and could help assess the effectiveness of actions to promote farmland biodiversity. Parings of farmers and citizen scientists were established to monitor biodiversity on UK farms. All partnerships reported positive outcomes.

Abstract

Citizen science schemes can gather biodiversity data that is useful to track large-scale biodiversity trends and could also be used to assess the effectiveness of actions aiming to promote farmland biodiversity. We wanted to explore the potential for farmers and citizen scientists to work in partnership to gather relevant biodiversity datasets of use to them both. As part of the Showcase project, parings of farmers and citizen science recorders were established to monitor butterflies on UK farms.

Biodiversity data from citizen science projects is valuable to farmers for various reasons. These data can provide baseline figures to help understand the health of the ecosystems on their farm. The data can provide information on which species are present to help to make better on-farm management decisions to help boost their populations by providing specific habitats or resources. Further, these data can help track changes over time to provide evidence of the effectiveness of specific interventions, such as the establishment of wildflower strips that can provide larval food plants and nectar resources.

We found that all partnerships reported positive outcomes therefore wider partnership working may be of value to both farmers and national recording schemes.