First formal estimate of the world population of the Critically Endangered spoon-billed sandpiper Calidris pygmaea​

Impacts of climate change on national biodiversity population trends

Climate change is a much discussed topic. There has been significant warming in the UK since the 1960s, with land temperature from 2005-2014 0.9°C higher than the 1961-1990 mean, and detectable shifts in rainfall patterns. During this time, there have been significant changes in biodiversity too, with long-term declines in some of our bird species, such as on farmland and in woodland, and in our moths. Other taxa have seen increases however, including some of our mammal species like deer. An important component of our work at BTO is to identify the causes of population changes in our biodiversity. Here, we consider the role that climate change may have played in driving some of these long-term trends.

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WeBS News - Issue 32

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Updated risk of H5N1 HPAI incursion to poultry in Great Britain via wild birds

State of Nature report 2016

The State of Nature report is an assessment of how nature is doing across the UK. As well as an overarching assessment of UK flora and fauna, there are separate reports for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to look at each country in more depth. The reports pool data and expertise from 53 nature conservation and research organisations, a partnership unparalleled in UK conservation.View a summary presentation of the State of Nature 2016.The BTO is proud to be a founding member of the State of Nature Partnership and our long-term volunteer-based monitoring schemes are key to such assessments. It is extremely important that well-structured monitoring to track changes in biodiversity continues and that good evidence is collected to identify the causes of change. Publicising the results and engagement with the public as well as policy-makers is essential to the success of any project based on citizen science.

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