The BBBC home page
The Big Biodiversity Butterfly Count takes place between Saturday 4 July and Sunday 12 July. To take part, you can pick up a butterfly identification guide and recording form at any library in Brighton & Hove.
You can download a copy of the Sussex Butterfly Guide leaflet here (3.7 MB pdf).
What is Biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the rich variety of living things that we find on the earth. Where they live together in a particular place they form an ecosystem. All the living things that live within ecosystems are linked together in food chains and food webs.
Why are Ecosystems Important?
Human beings rely on a host of invisible services that ecosystems provide. For example: they provide foods, medicines and energy; they regulate nutrient recycling and waste; they lock up carbon; they maintain clean air and water, they supply crop pollination, seed dispersal, pest and disease control; they preserve genetic diversity and provide recreation for us all.
What Threatens Natural Ecosystems?
It’s likely that those ecosystems that are most able to recover from severe environmental crises (like the effects of the 1987 hurricane) will be those that contain the most species. Unfortunately, as our demands on the natural world become greater, many species of plant and animal are lost. Since we rely on a high biodiversity to maintain the ecosystem services we all depend on, we need a way of monitoring species loss.
How does Recording Butterflies Help?
Butterflies are very easy to identify in comparison to many other living things and are particularly sensitive to changes in their habitat. They are, in most of their characteristics, typical insects, and the impact of environmental changes on butterflies is probably similar to the effects on many other insect groups. Thus, they are broadly representative of 50% of all terrestrial biodiversity. So by counting butterfly numbers we have a measure by which we can easily monitor the rest of biodiversity.
How does This Site Work?
Firstly, you will need to create an "account" and if you wish to record butterflies during the period of the survey in more than one location then you will need to create a new account for each location. We will only ask for the following information:
- Your name
- Your e-mail address
- Either the O.S. grid reference or post code of the location
- The type of habitat
- A brief description of the location
You may start entering your records as soon as the survey has started (4 July) and return as many times as you wish to add more results. When you return simply enter your user name and e-mail address in the box at the top of this page and you will be directed to the results form. If you check the "Remember me" box you won't even have to do that. If you have more than one account and have ticked the "Remember me" box you will be redirected to the last one you registered, to sign in to a different account you will have to first sign out of the account you are currently signed in with and then sign in again using the user name for the account you wish to update.
In the meantime if you go to the Sussex Butterflies sightings page you will be able to get a fantastic idea of what butterflies (and moths) are around in Sussex at the moment.
For all the latest on wildlife more local to Brighton & Hove go to the Citywildlife.org.uk website.
