Grassland butterflies

Grassland butterflies are declining rapidly in the agricultural area and in nature reserves.

Trends in semi-natural grasslands

Grassland is the habitat for several butterfly species that occur primarily in grasslands that are manured or fertilised little or not at all. These so-called semi-natural grasslands are nowadays rarely found outside nature reserves. On average, butterflies in semi-natural grasslands have been declining sharply since 1992.

Trends in the agricultural area

In the agricultural area, butterflies are also declining. Here the species live in grassy vegetations on dikes, field boundaries and roadside verges; very few butterflies are now found on the agricultural grasslands.

Causes

The decline in butterflies in the remaining agricultural area is attributable to eutrophication, the effects of water draw-down, the more intensive use of dikes, and, presumably, to fragmentation. It is compounded by the fact that butterflies are vulnerable to the use of insecticides on nearby fields. These factors also have some influence on the semi-natural grasslands.

Some of the grassland butterflies are on the Red List of butterflies.

Technical note

Semi-natural grasslands: wall brown (more or less stable), brown argus (no clear trend), meadow brown (stable), small skipper (decrease), large skipper (decrease), small heath (more or less stable), common blue (more or less stable), small copper (stable), Queen of Spain fritillary (decrease), green-veined white (increase), ringlet (stable), orange-tip (stable), hedge brown (decrease), large chequered skipper (decrease) and Essex skipper (decrease).
Remaining agricultural area: wall brown (decrease), brown argus (no clear trend), meadow brown (increase), small skipper (decrease), large skipper (decrease), small heath (no clear trend), common blue (decrease), small copper (increase), Queen of Spain fritillary (no clear trend), green-veined white (increase), ringlet (decrease), orange-tip (more or less stable), hedge brown (decrease), large chequered skipper (decrease) and Essex skipper (decrease).

The figures are from the Ecological Monitoring Network's national butterfly monitoring network. The data for semi-natural grasslands are from the sampling points on grassland in nature reserves.

References