A research paper written by Byron Morgan and Emily Dennis, in collaboration with Butterfly Conservation & the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology,  has been one of the top downloaded articles from the journal Conservation Biology in the 12 months following publication.

This means the work generated immediate impact and visibility and contributed significantly to the advancement of the field.

The full paper can be accessed here.

Using citizen science butterfly counts to predict species population trends

Citizen scientists are increasingly engaged in gathering biodiversity information, but trade‐offs are often required between public engagement goals and reliable data collection. We compared population estimates for 18 widespread butterfly species derived from the first 4 years (2011–2014) of a short‐duration citizen science project (Big Butterfly Count [BBC]) with those from long‐running, standardized monitoring data collected by experienced observers (U.K. Butterfly Monitoring Scheme [UKBMS]). BBC data are gathered during an annual 3‐week period, whereas UKBMS sampling takes place over 6 months each year. An initial comparison with UKBMS data restricted to the 3‐week BBC period revealed that species population changes were significantly correlated between the 2 sources. The short‐duration sampling season rendered BBC counts susceptible to bias caused by interannual phenological variation in the timing of species’ flight periods. The BBC counts were positively related to butterfly phenology and sampling effort. Annual estimates of species abundance and population trends predicted from models including BBC data and weather covariates as a proxy for phenology correlated significantly with those derived from UKBMS data. Overall, citizen science data obtained using a simple sampling protocol produced comparable estimates of butterfly species abundance to data collected through standardized monitoring methods. Although caution is urged in extrapolating from this U.K. study of a small number of common, conspicuous insects, we found that mass‐participation citizen science can simultaneously contribute to public engagement and biodiversity monitoring. Mass‐participation citizen science is not an adequate replacement for standardized biodiversity monitoring but may extend and complement it (e.g., through sampling different land‐use types), as well as serving to reconnect an increasingly urban human population with nature.

Emily Dennis (Butterfly Conservation) and Byron Morgan (SE@K) have recently published a paper in Ecological Indicators exploring multi-species abundance and occupancy indices using Functional Data Analysis tools.

The full paper can be accessed here.

Functional data analysis of multi-species abundance and occupancy data sets

Emily B.Dennis, Byron J.T.Morgan, RichardFox, David B.Roy and Tom M.Brereton

Multi-species indicators are widely used to condense large, complex amounts of information on multiple separate species by forming a single index to inform research, policy and management. Much detail is typically lost when such indices are constructed. Here we investigate the potential of Functional Data Analysis, focussing upon Functional Principal Component Analysis (FPCA), which can be easily carried out using standard R programs, as a tool for displaying features of the underlying information. Illustrations are provided using data from the UK Butterflies for the New Millennium and UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme databases. The FPCAs conducted result in a huge simplification in terms of dimensional reduction, allowing species occupancy and abundance to be reduced to two and three dimensions, respectively. We show that a functional principal component arises for both occupancy and abundance analyses that distinguishes between species that increase or decrease over time, and that it differs from percentage trend, which is a simplification of complex temporal changes. We find differences in species patterns of occupancy and abundance, providing a warning against routinely combining both types of index within multi-species indicators, for example when using occupancy as a proxy for abundance when insufficient abundance data are available. By identifying the differences between species, figures displaying functional principal component scores are much more informative than the simple bar plots of percentages of significant trends that often accompany multi-species indicators. Informed by the outcomes of the FPCA, we make recommendations for accompanying visualisations for multi-species indicators, and discuss how these are likely to be context and audience specific. We show that, in the absence of FPCA, using mean species occupancy and total abundance can provide additional, accessible information to complement species-level trends. At the simplest level, we suggest using jitter plots to display variation in species-level trends. We encourage further application to other taxa, and recommend the routine augmentation of multi-species indicators in the future with additional statistical procedures and figures, to serve as an aid to improve communication and understanding of biodiversity metrics, as well as reveal potentially hidden patterns of behaviour and guide additional directions for investigation.

Dr Rachel McCrea of the Statistical Ecology @ Kent group from the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science is taking on the role of Director of the National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE).

The NCSE is a joint research centre which aims to “develop, apply and communicate innovative statistical methods for collecting and analysing ecological data, thereby improving the understanding and management of wild populations and their environment”.  It was established in 2005 and the current consortium unites research excellence across the Universities of Kent, St Andrews, Bath, Bristol, Edinburgh, Essex, Exeter, Glasgow and Sheffield, together with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.  A number of project partners are actively involved with the centre, including Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and Marine Scotland. The centre also has a considerable number of international members spanning the globe and initiated the world-leading biennial International Statistical Ecology Conference, the next of which will be hosted in Sydney in June 2020.

Rachel commenced this exciting role on 1st April, and together with the new Deputy Director, Professor Ruth King from the University of Edinburgh, looks forward to driving new NCSE initiatives. They have secured funding, jointly with the previous co-directors of the NCSE Professors Steve Buckland and Byron Morgan, to host an International Centre for Mathematical Sciences meeting in Edinburgh in June 2019 on the topic of Addressing Statistical Challenges of Modern Technological Advances.  This meeting will be used to identify future directions and associated thematic areas of the NCSE to ensure that the centre remains at the forefront of internationally leading statistical ecology research.  ​