Drivers and Repercussions of UK Insect Declines (DRUID)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: Sch of Biology
Abstract
Due to their vast numbers and diversity, insects dominate natural ecosystems and processes. Wholesale insect declines could have profound consequences. Yet despite growing public concern about a possible "insect Armageddon," evidence of widespread insect declines remains fragmentary, even in the UK (arguably one of the best studied countries on Earth); nor do we understand the value that insects provide for wider society. A far stronger evidence-base is required to provide a secure basis for policy, to devise methods to reverse insect declines and protect the roles that insects play in multiple ecosystem services.
We have assembled four of the UK's leading insect dynamics research teams to assess the causes, consequences and potential remedies of insect declines. We will combine data from standardised insect monitoring programmes of a wide range of taxa, modelled outputs of biodiversity databases, and novel assays using weather radar signals to assess shifts in insect abundance, diversity, functional composition and biomass in both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems across Britain. Species-level trend data will be assessed relative to a range of potential driver variables and species' traits in an overarching synthesis of decline patterns across taxa and environments. The team has unrivalled access to the latest UK datasets and modelling developments covering insects and environmental drivers down to 1-km resolution or finer, through a wide range of on-going environmental research projects and collaborating partner organisations. Our results will be used to inform mechanistic models to predict the dynamics of insect species and functional-groups across the UK in space and time. Functional consequences of insect declines will be assessed, with particular focus on trophic roles as prey in aerial (bird/bat) and aquatic (fish) systems, pollination and pest control functions, and in nutrient transport between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. How alterations in insect communities are linked to economic and cultural values will be assessed through a review of existing studies, augmented with participatory valuation approaches for ecosystem services that are poorly studied, such as cultural services. The population, community and functional models developed above will be applied to a diverse set of contrasting future climate, land-use and policy scenarios, to predict insect dynamics with and without specific mitigation measures. Both scenarios and mitigation options will be co-designed together with relevant stakeholders and linked to existing climate scenarios and planned agri-environmental schemes. Consequences of recent past, current and future scenarios for human welfare and natural capital will be estimated, using stakeholder-based valuations. Our novel, integrated approach will guarantee high quality and high impact research outputs, which will be widely disseminated to the scientific and stakeholder communities, and the general public. By engaging relevant policy and decision-makers at an early stage of the project, results will be tailored and directly relevant to on-going policy development in land management, biodiversity conservation and the implementation of natural capital approaches, maximising the likelihood of substantial impacts on both society and the natural world.
We have assembled four of the UK's leading insect dynamics research teams to assess the causes, consequences and potential remedies of insect declines. We will combine data from standardised insect monitoring programmes of a wide range of taxa, modelled outputs of biodiversity databases, and novel assays using weather radar signals to assess shifts in insect abundance, diversity, functional composition and biomass in both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems across Britain. Species-level trend data will be assessed relative to a range of potential driver variables and species' traits in an overarching synthesis of decline patterns across taxa and environments. The team has unrivalled access to the latest UK datasets and modelling developments covering insects and environmental drivers down to 1-km resolution or finer, through a wide range of on-going environmental research projects and collaborating partner organisations. Our results will be used to inform mechanistic models to predict the dynamics of insect species and functional-groups across the UK in space and time. Functional consequences of insect declines will be assessed, with particular focus on trophic roles as prey in aerial (bird/bat) and aquatic (fish) systems, pollination and pest control functions, and in nutrient transport between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. How alterations in insect communities are linked to economic and cultural values will be assessed through a review of existing studies, augmented with participatory valuation approaches for ecosystem services that are poorly studied, such as cultural services. The population, community and functional models developed above will be applied to a diverse set of contrasting future climate, land-use and policy scenarios, to predict insect dynamics with and without specific mitigation measures. Both scenarios and mitigation options will be co-designed together with relevant stakeholders and linked to existing climate scenarios and planned agri-environmental schemes. Consequences of recent past, current and future scenarios for human welfare and natural capital will be estimated, using stakeholder-based valuations. Our novel, integrated approach will guarantee high quality and high impact research outputs, which will be widely disseminated to the scientific and stakeholder communities, and the general public. By engaging relevant policy and decision-makers at an early stage of the project, results will be tailored and directly relevant to on-going policy development in land management, biodiversity conservation and the implementation of natural capital approaches, maximising the likelihood of substantial impacts on both society and the natural world.
Organisations
- University of Leeds (Lead Research Organisation)
- The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Collaboration)
- National Science Foundation (NSF) (Collaboration)
- The Riverfly Partnership (Project Partner)
- ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (Project Partner)
- Dept for Env Food & Rural Affairs DEFRA (Project Partner)
- Riverfly Recording Schemes (Project Partner)
- BASF SE (Project Partner)
- Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation (Project Partner)
- Angling Trust (Project Partner)
Publications
Image M
(2022)
Which interventions contribute most to the net effect of England's agri-environment schemes on pollination services?
in Landscape Ecology
Boyd RJ
(2022)
ROBITT: A tool for assessing the risk-of-bias in studies of temporal trends in ecology.
in Methods in ecology and evolution
Lukach M
(2022)
The development of an unsupervised hierarchical clustering analysis of dual-polarization weather surveillance radar observations to assess nocturnal insect abundance and diversity.
in Remote sensing in ecology and conservation
Powell KE
(2023)
Abundance trends for river macroinvertebrates vary across taxa, trophic group and river typology.
in Global change biology
Guenat S
(2023)
A global meta-analysis reveals contrasting impacts of air, light, and noise pollution on pollination.
in Ecology and evolution
Fisher J
(2023)
Human well-being responses to species' traits
in Nature Sustainability
Johnson T
(2024)
Pressure to publish introduces large-language model risks
in Methods in Ecology and Evolution
Lukach M
(2024)
Operationalising weather surveillance radar data for use in ecological research
in Ecological Informatics
Evans LC
(2024)
Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national-scale monitoring data.
in Ecology letters
Powell KE
(2024)
Asynchrony in terrestrial insect abundance corresponds with species traits.
in Ecology and evolution
Wilkes M
(2024)
Predicting nature recovery for river restoration planning and ecological assessment: A case study from England, 1991-2042
in River Research and Applications
Gomez S
(2025)
Understanding and predicting animal movements and distributions in the Anthropocene
in Journal of Animal Ecology
| Description | We are in the final year of the award, and its findings are coming together well. We are amassing a growing set of results showing positive and negative trends in specific insect species and groups, and responses to key environmental and management drivers. We have compiled datasets covering a wide range of UK insect taxa (including Aquatic bugs; Ants, Bees; Butterflies; Caddisflies; Carabids; Craneflies; Dragonflies and damselflies; Earwigs; Empid & Dolichopodid Flies; Fungus gnats; Grasshoppers and allies; Hoverflies; Ladybirds; Leaf and seed beetles, Longhorn beetles; Mayflies; Moths; Shield bugs; Soldierflies; Stoneflies; Wasps), both from existing recording schemes and from standardised monitoring programs -- including new data from suction trap by-catch. We have run hierarchical occupancy models for the above groups, giving species-specific annual times-series of occupancy (estimating the proportion of occupied UK/GB grid cells from 1970 to 2020+) for 3585 species (of which we were able to extract meaningful trend data for over 1400), providing the most comprehensive update of its kind. The DRUID team at UKCEH have co-led development of a new framework for assessing risk-of-bias in studies of temporal trends (ROBITT). Such assessments are common in many disciplines, notably medical research, but until now have been lacking in ecology. We have developed a Shiny app that was used to facilitate feedback from taxonomic group experts on the annual occupancy outputs and bias assessments described above and their associated trends, which will be part of a forthcoming paper. We have also compiled data on many of the key potential drivers of insect change, and are linking these to local and national insect dynamics. Using novel "Explainable neural net" methods, we have shown strong links between moth occupancy and both climate and habitat -- and in particular woodland cover. Work currently in review, across a wider set of taxa examines how species' traits modulate these trends, with strong effects of body size and generation time emerging. We have developed novel tools for assessing the abundance of airborne insects over wide areas of Britain, using data from weather radar, with a manuscript currently in revision showing both geographical and environmental gradients in their dynamics. We have also begun to make progress towards measuring the impact of insects on ecosystems, demonstrating for example strong links between the abundance of specific caterpillar species and the growth of bird populations. We have developed production function models exploring the monetary value of natural enemies in reducing yield losses of three major crops and delivered a questionnaire to over 1600 people that quantifies the public's willingness to pay for enhancing habitats for bee, wasp and beetle populations. Scenarios depicting both near-future and far-future land-use changes related to key emerging policies under net-zero goals such as Biodiversity Net Gain and Environmental Land Management Schemes have been mapped and related to insect species' modelled abundance and distribution for an initial suite of candidate species. These and other aspects of the work will be completed in the final year of the project. |
| Exploitation Route | The tools, datasets and findings of the project will help document trends in UK insect abundance, biodiversity and function, and help model the implications of future policy and management scenarios for insects and the ecosystem services they provide. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Environment Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Government Democracy and Justice |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y86R_Zxqu8 |
| Description | Even though our project is not yet completed, it is already having substantial impact. Several key members of the project team (Simon Potts, Claire Carvell, James Bell and our PI William Kunin) were asked to present oral evidence to public hearings of Parliamentary Science Innovation and Technology Committee's hearings on "Insect Declines and UK food Security" in June 2023. These formal hearings have been complemented by large numbers of informal public engagement events, ranging from Defra's Bees Needs Week exhibitions to the Great Yorkshire Show. We have had two meetings with the DRUID Stakeholder Advisory Board, which includes representatives from BASF, Buglife, Butterfly Conservation, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAFRA), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), The Environment Agency, The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), The National Farmers Union, Natural England, The Northern Ireland Government and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The first meeting, 2023, helped us identify potential topics and modes of communication for our project outputs (factsheets, policy briefs and videos) with the aim of maximising policy and public impact. The second meeting "UK Insect Futures", 2025, allowed stakeholders to provide feedback on the near- and far-future land use simulations as a basis to co-design emerging project outputs. To date DRUID has produced an aminated video "Are UK insect populations declining, and what's causing the changes? " (with a second planned on future scenarios), drafted two factsheets on trends in insects and values of insects (with three more planned), and planned two policy briefs. |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Testimony to Parliamentary Committee |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Contribution to Parliamentary review of insect declines and potential links to food security. |
| Description | Are sterols landscape limiting nutrients for wild bees in the UK? |
| Amount | £650,280 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | NE/V012282/1 |
| Organisation | Natural Environment Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2021 |
| End | 07/2024 |
| Description | Impact and Innovation fund |
| Amount | £17,447 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 19309373 |
| Organisation | University of Leeds |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2022 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Description | Safeguarding biodiversity and carbon-rich forest networks in Europe |
| Amount | € 12,000,000 (EUR) |
| Funding ID | 101181981 |
| Organisation | European Commission |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 02/2025 |
| End | 08/2029 |
| Title | Improved methods for assessing aerial insect abundance using dual-polarization weather radar |
| Description | We have developed and tested analytical techniques for isolating information on airborne insect abundance and biomass from weather radar outputs. The tool will provide a powerful tool for assessing dynamics of an important facet of insect communities over vast spatial scales and at fine spatial and temporal resolution. We have tested the method against catch from an aerial suction-trap, and found strong correlations. One component of the method was published in 2022, and the full method and validation is described in a paper now submitted to PNAS. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Too early to tell. |
| Title | Abundance trends for river macroinvertebrates vary across taxa, trophic group and river typology |
| Description | There is mounting evidence that terrestrial arthropods are declining rapidly in many areas of the world. It is unclear whether freshwater invertebrates, which are key providers of ecosystem services, are also declining. We addressed this question by analysing a long-term dataset of macroinvertebrate abundance collected from 2002 to 2019 across 5,009 sampling sites in English rivers. Patterns varied markedly across taxonomic groups. Within trophic groups, we detected increases in the abundance of carnivores by 19% and herbivores by 14.8%, whilst we estimated decomposers have declined by 21.7% in abundance since 2002. We also found heterogeneity in trends across rivers belonging to different typologies based on geological dominance and catchment altitude, with organic lowland rivers having generally higher rates of increase in abundance across taxa and trophic groups, with siliceous lowland rivers having the most declines. Our results reveal a complex picture of change in freshwater macroinvertebrate abundance between taxonomic groups, trophic levels and river typologies. Our analysis helps with identifying priority regions for action on potential environmental stressors where we discover macroinvertebrate abundance declines. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.v9s4mw70n |
| Title | Code and data from Lukach et al. (2024, Ecological Informatics) |
| Description | The data and code presented here correspond to Lukach et al. (2024, Ecological Informatics). |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Code_and_data_from_Lukach_et_al_2024_Ecological_Informatics_/2... |
| Title | Data for: Revealing hidden dources of uncertainty in biodiversity trend assessments |
| Description | Idiosyncratic decisions during the biodiversity trend assessment process may limit reproducibility, whilst "hidden" uncertainty due to collection bias, taxonomic incompleteness, and variable taxonomic resolution may limit the reliability of reported trends. We model alternative decisions made during assessment of taxon-level abundance and distribution trends using an 18-year time series covering freshwater fish, invertebrates, and primary producers in England. Through three case studies, we test for collection bias and quantify uncertainty stemming from data preparation and model specification decisions, assess the risk of conflating trends for individual species when aggregating data to higher taxonomic ranks, and evaluate the potential uncertainty stemming from taxonomic incompleteness. Choice of optimizer algorithm and data filtering to obtain more complete time series explained 52.5% of the variation in trend estimates, obscuring the signal from taxon-specific trends. The use of Penalized Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares, a simplified approach to model optimization, was the most important source of uncertainty. Application of increasingly harsh data filters exacerbated collection bias in the modelled dataset. Aggregation to higher taxonomic ranks was a significant source of uncertainty, leading to conflation of trends among protected and invasive species. We also found potential for substantial positive bias in trend estimation across six fish populations which were not consistently recorded in all operational areas. We complement analyses of observational data with in silico experiments in which monitoring and trend assessment processes were simulated to enable comparison of trend estimates with known underlying trends, confirming that collection bias, data filtering and taxonomic incompleteness have significant negative impacts on the accuracy of trend estimates. Identifying and managing uncertainty in biodiversity trend assessment is crucial for informing effective conservation policy and practice. We highlight several serious sources of uncertainty affecting biodiversity trend analyses and present tools to improve the transparency of decisions made during the trend assessment process. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.np5hqc034 |
| Title | Links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data |
| Description | Code in support of "Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data" Luke Christopher Evans, Malcolm D. Burgess, Simon G. Potts, William E. Kunin, Tom H. Oliver |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/8021350 |
| Title | Links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data |
| Description | Code in support of "Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data" Luke Christopher Evans, Malcolm D. Burgess, Simon G. Potts, William E. Kunin, Tom H. Oliver |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/8033729 |
| Title | Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data |
| Description | Code in support of "Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data" Luke Christopher Evans, Malcolm D. Burgess, Simon G. Potts, William E. Kunin, Tom H. Oliver |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10037555 |
| Title | Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data |
| Description | Code in support of "Population links between an insectivorous bird and moths disentangled through national scale monitoring data" Luke Christopher Evans, Malcolm D. Burgess, Simon G. Potts, William E. Kunin, Tom H. Oliver |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.8021349 |
| Description | Building link to Sanger Institute BIOSCAN monitoring project |
| Organisation | The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Sample collection |
| Collaborator Contribution | Molecular analysis and ID |
| Impact | none yet, Anticipate taxonomic and informatic outputs. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Participation in NSF Status of Insects RCN |
| Organisation | National Science Foundation (NSF) |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | An international Research Coordination Network has been established by the US National Science Foundation. Our work is germane to the network's interests, and multiple project members have joined the network, serving within its Data Aggregation, Quantitative Analysis, Causes of Declines, Consequences of Declines and Solutions working groups. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The RCN has run a series of webinars bringing together the global research community on insect declines. It also distr=ibutes links to recent papers on the topic, and serves as a clearing-house for international research collaboration. |
| Impact | The Network has only just been formed. The potential outcomes are still in the future. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Title | ROBITT |
| Description | ROBITT: Risk Of Bias In studies of Temporal Trends in ecology tool. ROBITT has a similar format to its counterparts in other disciplines: it comprises signalling questions designed to elicit information on the potential for bias in key study domains. In answering these, users will define study inferential goal(s) and relevant statistical target populations. This information is used to assess potential sampling biases across domains relevant to the research question (e.g. geography, taxonomy, environment), and how these vary through time. If assessments indicate biases, then users must clearly describe them and/or explain what mitigating action will be taken. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The tool is available as a supplementary file online (Appendix 1). It is beginning to be employed by analysts in the field. |
| URL | https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/2041-210X.13857 |
| Description | "ECOBRIDGE: a knowledge-based expert system to produce high-resolution land cover/land use maps from coarser sources" - virtual talk delivered by Dr Josep Serra Gallego for a session at the British Ecological Society Annual meeting, December 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Future land use scenarios are often generated at coarse spatial resolutions, but modelling their ecological impacts often requires Pner-resolution information on landscape composition and structure. We introduced ECOBRIDGE (Ecology and Biodiversity Integrated Downscale Generation): a knowledge-based expert system partly derived from DRUID WPE research, to produce high-resolution land cover/land use maps from coarser sources. ECOBRIDGE is an open, ArcGIS Pro workflow that draws on expert knowledge defining land use/land cover change to parse a low resolution baseline and scenario, alongside a higher-resolution baseline. ECOBRIDGE also facilitates knowledge transfer from a human-dependent expert system to an Artificial Intelligence framework by packaging the information driving the downscaling process into a deep learning model. ECOBRIDGE offers an efficient, reproducible route to bridging the gap between available low-resolution datasets, and more accurate high-resolution information. The talk sparked questions and follow-up dialogue with academics interested in applying the system. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/bes-annual-meeting-2024/agenda/ |
| Description | "Understanding patterns in long-term insect occurrence data suggests a precautionary approach to estimating trends: expert evidence from 19 UK insect groups" - talk presented at the British Ecological Society Annual meeting, Dec 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk given by Dr Claire Carvell (UKCEH) in the session on "Macroecology and Biogeography - Methods, models and theory" at BES 2024. This featured research led by Dr Gary Powney under DRUID WPA that demonstrated the value of a risk-of-bias assessment framework, integrating data-driven bias assessments with expert evaluations to assess a widely used occupancy modelling approach for understanding insect trends. Members of Defra and JNCC biodiversity Indicator and policy teams were present at the talk, as well as academics, and this has sparked follow-on conversations in the context of future Red List and biodiversity indicator assessments. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/bes-annual-meeting-2024/agenda/ |
| Description | Cafe Scientifique talk on insect declines |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I gave a short talk to the Chapel Allerton (Leeds) branch of Cafe Scientifique on 21/09/2022 about radar aeroecology, referencing work from BioDAR and DRUID projects |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.cafe-sci.org.uk/previous-events/?event_id1=143 |
| Description | Conference Session (BES - time lags) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Emma Gardner co-organised (with University of Birmingham) a thematic session at the British Ecological Society Annual Conference, which took place on 12th December 2024, and involved 6 talks followed by a panel discussion, including questions from the audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/content/bes-annual-meeting-2024/ |
| Description | ESA Insect monitoring technology workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A workshop on "automated monitoring of insects" -- held at the Ecological Society of America annual meetings in Portland Oregon on 10 August 2023. The review included discussion of the use of AI-based tools for insect monitoring. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Expert assessment of co-benefits of pollinator-targeted interventions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Expert panel using delphi process to determine co-benefits of pollinator targeted interventions undertaken for EU project |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Global Biosphere Sensing Network workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop to discuss novel technologies for monitoring natural populations and processes, including visual, acoustic, eDNA and radar-based tools for monitoring insects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Great Yorkshire Show exhibit |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public event, focused on Yorkshire region, with an agricultural slant. Exhibit was about insects, their role as ecosystem service providers, and new methods for monitoring them. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited panel member giving oral evidence to the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee on the inquiry into Insect Decline and UK Food Security |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee held a series of oral evidence sessions as part of its inquiry into 'Insect decline and UK food security' in 2023 https://committees.parliament.uk/work/7381/insect-decline-and-uk-food-security/. Having led a written submission to the inquiry by UKCEH, I was invited to be a witness and give evidence at a session at Westminster introducing the topic of insect decline, exploring the gaps in our knowledge and the role of 'Citizen Science', all topics which are covered under our work on the DRUID project. The report from the inquiry is yet to be released. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://committees.parliament.uk/work/7381/insect-decline-and-uk-food-security/ |
| Description | Otley Science Festival talk on radar and insects |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk as part of Otley Science Festival to a group of approximately 40 members of the general public on 15/09/2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://otleysciencefestival.co.uk/science-cafes/ |
| Description | Pint of Science talk on insect declines |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I gave a talk at Leeds Pint of Science about insect declines, referencing DRUID and BioDAR outputs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://pintofscience.co.uk/event/the-weevil-that-men-do-stopping-insectageddon |
| Description | Presentation (Defra ELMS Team) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Claire Carvell, John Redhead and Emma Gardner gave talks (covering research under DRUID WPA and WPE) to three members of Defra's Environmental Land Management Team on 4th December 2024 about our research building future land-use scenarios and modelling the impact of land-use interventions on species' abundance, distributions and functional contributions over time, as well as understanding how species abundance/distributions have changed over time. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Presentation to CIEEM Invertebrate Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Presentation summarizing evidence to date concerning the evidence of global and UK Insect declines, and potential drivers thereof. The presentation described the two NERC Highlights projects on this issue: DRUID and GLiTRS, and described ways in which the Ecological Consultants community can contribute to the evidence base. The presentation was followed by lively discussion and constructive dialogue. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | http://events.cieem.net/Events/EventPages/25012022000000CIEEM2022WalesConferenceInvertebratesThinkSm... |
| Description | Public talk to Leeds Skeptics in the Pub |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A public talk given on insect declines on 3/5/2022 with Q&A. Audience approximately 20 people. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/events/300104125515487/?ref=newsfeed |
| Description | Public talk to Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A short talk and Q&A with an audience of 35 members of the public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.aske-skeptics.org.uk/sheffield.html |
| Description | Risk-of-bias workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Hosted two workshops where we worked with an international team to develop a risk-of-bias tool for ecology. Risk of bias assessments are common in many disciplines, notably medical research, where they are used to highlight potential bias and the mitigation approaches within the given study. Such assessments tend to be conducted and reported when research is published using potentially biased data. Biodiversity datasets tend to suffer from a range of biases that can inhibit the estimation of robust trends. In these workshops we developed a formalised risk of bias tool 'checklist' for research studies examining temporal trends in biodiversity based on aggregated biodiversity data. The risk-of-bias tool is proposed and described in a paper we submitted to Methods in Ecology & Evolution (Dec 21). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Stakeholder Advisory Board meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Third sector organisations |
| Results and Impact | Meeting of the DRUID project stakeholder Advisory Board, including representatives from Defra, The Environment Agency, the JNCC, Natural England, the NI Government, the RSPB, BugLife, Butterfly Conservation, the NFU and BASF. The meeting was devoted to clarifying key audiences, topics and formats for project outputs to maximise impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Talk to local science group (Barnsley Skeptics in the Pub) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 30 members of the public attended a talk I delivered on insect declines, drawing on work from several NERC-funded projects (BioDAR, DRUID, UpBRAIN). Good question and answer session afterwards to explore the ideas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://fb.me/e/3XGKfBXLm |
| Description | Talk to the UK Terrestrial Evidence Partnership of Partnerships |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Gave a talk to the UK Terrestrial Evidence Partnership of Partnerships about the trends and bias work of the DRUID project. Specifically, this talk focused on the expert review section of the research. UKTEPoP's core mission is to foster a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing, enabling its partners to achieve more together than they could individually. Through this approach, UKTEPoP is helping to improve understanding of the UK's natural environment, ensuring that conservation efforts are informed, efficient, and impactful. The goal of our talk was to ensure the DRUID trends and bias research was promoted to this partnership, given the research is critical to ensuring that future work is accurate and that any limitations of existing approaches are explored, mitigated and communicated. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://gpowney.shinyapps.io/DRUID_trend_viewer/ |
| Description | Workshop (DRUID Workshop on Insect Futures) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Ran an online workshop on 24th February 2025 to present and discuss findings from the NERC-funded DRUID project around the potential impacts of future land-use changes on insects with 23 stakeholders. Presentations were given by DRUID team members Richard Pywell, Mike Image, John Redhead and Emma Gardner with Claire Carvell and Simon Potts also supporting the break-out discussion rooms. Feedback from stakeholders included 'Its been interesting to consider how land use changes could affect insect populations' and 'I've valued listening to presentations on the work so far before delving into the workshops'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| Description | Youtube video describing the DRUID project's analysis of insect data sets and some key findings |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | We created a short animation aimed at a general audience to promote the DRUID research and some of our key findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y86R_Zxqu8 |