Common drone fly on flower

Silver Y moth on flower

Butterfly on flower and headline The Big British Garden Survey

Great to be partnering with National Garden Scheme on The Big British Garden Survey to reveal the wildlife thriving in our gardens 🦋🐞.

Record what you see and help build a national picture of UK #biodiversity.

Join in: ngs.org.uk/the-big-brit... 🧪 @abigaillowe.bsky.social

Fifty years of data reveal specialist butterflies disappearing across UK An extraordinary dataset of over 44 million records from 782,000 volunteer surveys has revealed what has happened to the UK's butterflies as the national landscape has changed over the past 50…

UKBMS results out today!

Results from fifty years of butterfly monitoring! The UKBMS data reveals declines in 33 species over the last 50 years.

Check out the full story below butterfly-conservation.org/news-and-blo...

And the full 2025 statistics can be found here: jncc.gov.uk/our-work/off...

Welcome to the UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (PoMS) | PoMS Pollinating insects play a vital role in our environment, ensuring that many of our crops and wild plants are able to set seed and produce fruit. We need to know how pollinator populations are changing, and with your help we are gathering data on a wide range of flower-visiting insects.

The UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme how you give the public a chance to join in and help monitor the health of our pollinators

ukpoms.org.uk/home

Hive mind request.

I’m looking for long term insect (ideally pollinator) monitoring schemes that have conducted weekly/monthly transects/counts for several years. I know of the Bee walks, UKMS, and PoMs in the UK.

I would love some non-UK examples!

🐝🦋🐝🦋🐝🦋

My Garden of a Thousand Bees review – a joyous film on the unbearable lightness of bee-ing This gasp-inducing documentary shows a man buzzing over the remarkable insects that bumble around his garden … and ended up changing his life

This gasp-inducing documentary shows a man buzzing over the remarkable insects that bumble around his garden … and ended up changing his life

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

BBC Four - My Garden of a Thousand Bees Wildlife film-maker Martin Dohrn sets out to film over 60 species of bee in his garden.

I recommend giving 'Garden of a thousand bees' at watch this week if youre UK based. It's a funny and entertaining watch and all about the ecology of pollinators in gardens (what's not to love).

This Wednesday BBC 4 @ 8pm

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

2025 saw bumblebees bounce back from 2024’s worst year on record. But, for many species, numbers are still below average🚨

The latest findings from BeeWalk shows:
⚠️5 species declined even further
📉15 species are below average
📊2 rare species had promising numbers

Read on: https://ow.ly/rPgn50YtjhB

Research groups here in Zoology play an important part in Europe’s response to pollinator decline.

Read about their recent work: bit.ly/40rpMly

@markjfbrown.bsky.social @restpoll.bsky.social @safeguard-pollinators.eu

Really exciting to see this paper out! Using AI to improve the detection of busy bumblebees visiting cherry flowers 🐝🌸🍒 great collaboration between U of Aberdeen and James Hutton Institute 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

📢 Safeguard releases three new policy briefs!

Each of the new briefs translated the project's research into guidance for decision-makers across different policy areas.

👉 Available on the Safeguard project website and in the Safe-hub policy corner: safeguard-pollinators.eu/policy-corner

📣📣 2-year postdoc position available in my group at the University of Milan (Italy). We are looking for a biologist/entomologist with molecular skills as part of the Horizon ProPollSoil project… | Fab... 📣📣 2-year postdoc position available in my group at the University of Milan (Italy). We are looking for a biologist/entomologist with molecular skills as part of the Horizon ProPollSoil project https:...

www.linkedin.com/posts/fabio-...

(B) PER conditioning assays. (1) Initial feed and water desensitisation. Harnessed bees given 3–5 μl 30% (w/w) sucrose; antennae touched with water. (2) Acclimatisation. 1 h in darkness (lab cabinet), 22–25°C, 35–40% relative humidity. (3) Conditioning. Five citral presentations (5 μl 95% v/v on filter paper in 20 ml syringe) each reinforced with 30% sucrose. (4) Filter. Discard bees showing PER to first odour presentation or no PER to sucrose. (5) Memory tests. Three trials same day+three trials next day. Group assignment: Good Learners=PER in all six tests; Poor Learners=no PER in any test. (6) Storage. Freezing at −80°C for later molecular work.

Simon Loughran, @fmanfredini.bsky.social & co explore how natural deformed wing virus infections and cognitive ability shape brain gene expression in honey bee foragers. doi.org/10.1242/bio....

#Transcriptomics #HoneyBees

🦠 A new #SafeguardResearch examines how viruses spread between managed honey bees and wild pollinators - and the results challenge some common assumptions.

👉 Read the full study: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#EUPollinators #honeybees #wildpollinators

Increasing Inclusivity in Biological Recording in the United Kingdom: Progress to Date and Future Priorities | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

Nice to be starting 2026 with our new paper with @sei.org on making #CitizenScience biological recording more inclusive @savebutterflies.bsky.social doi.org/10.5334/cstp...

Scientific Symposia 01 – Adult phenotypic plasticity and the regulation of division of labor in social insects Romain Libbrecht, Abel Bernadou This symposium will explore the factors and mechanisms that regulate…

If youre looking for a conference this summer, join us at the IUSSI international Congress in Freiburg.

If you need somewhere to submit an abstract, some wonderful colleagues and I are hosting a symposium on Conserving Wild Social Insects. Take a look at the brief!
iussi2026.org/scientific-s...

🌼Sown wildflower plantings can help counter pollinator decline by restoring key resources. A #SafeguardResearch looks into how higher flower diversity supports bees & butterflies - especially in flower‑poor seasons.

👉 Read the full study: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Heather nectar extracts reduce within-colony epidemics of the bumblebee parasite Crithidia bombi Abstract. Disease and habitat loss are significant causes of pollinator declines, and evidence indicates the two are linked. In Britain, lowland heath is a

Heather nectar metabolites reduce within-colony epidemics of the bumblebee parasite Crithidia bombi showing that anti microbial compounds in nectar are effective at improving bee health at colony levels. @rbgkew.bsky.social
@markjfbrown.bsky.social
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

New IUCN Red List data shows worsening trends for Europe’s wild #pollinators: 100 more bee species are now threatened, and the percentage of vulnerable butterfly species is up 76% in a decade.

More at: www.safeguard.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/News/ViewNew...

Funded PhD open to UK-domiciled, home fee applicants of Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black or mixed Black heritage - The legacy impacts of extreme climate events on animal behaviour, physio... PhD Project - Funded PhD open to UK-domiciled, home fee applicants of Black African, Black Caribbean or other Black or mixed Black heritage - The legacy impacts of extreme climate events on animal beh...

PhD position at the University of Bristol (with me!) entitled 'The legacy impacts of extreme climate events on animal behaviour, physiology, and fitness'.

Fully funded and is available for UK-domiciled students of black heritage. Please reach out with any questions.

tinyurl.com/5n7s8yp9

PhD applications are now open @treesdla.bsky.social for 2026 intake. Have a look at a project on effects of forest diversity on floral reward production for pollinators that we advertise with @philstevenson.bsky.social. Do apply/get in touch if you are interested! www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/eff...

We are delighted that our Winter Meeting 2025 in Leuven 🇧🇪 is approaching!

Abstract submissions now open: www.iussi-nweurope.org/meetings

Date: December 18-19
Abstract deadline: October 15
Host: Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution at KU Leuven
Plenary: Ido Pen & @rmash.bsky.social

And if you want proof I now know every single flower in all our 32 project gardens ...

Gardeners' World - 2025: Episode 24 As summer starts to make way for autumn, Monty is harvesting sweetcorn, taking stock of his plants in pots and pruning summer-fruiting raspberries.

Find out more about my research and the Pollinator Pathmaker Constantine Network on Gardeners' World this week.

A great overview of the Pollinator Pathmaker and the great community on which our research is based.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002j9sh

Common Blue butterfly resting on heather against a dark pink background. Text overlay reads 'the results are in' with Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count logo. Photo credit Matt Berry

The #BigButterflyCount results are in and it's official...

2025 was an average year for butterflies.

See the full results and what can be done to help butterflies and moths 👇
butterfly-conservation.org/big-butterfly-count-resu...

UK Butterfly abundance Indicators for 1976-2024 have been released, showing an 18% decline in overall butterfly abundance for the UK. Habitat specialists have fared worse, declining by over a third.

Check out the full statistics here ⬇️

buff.ly/1AIDB3J

Pollinator‐Promoting Interventions in European Urban Habitats—A Synthesis Syntheses of urban pollinator-friendly management are lacking, hindering policy implementation compared to farmland. Addressing this gap, our re-analytical data synthesis demonstrates the generally p...

New Europe-wide study finds that efforts to provide pollinator habitat in urban areas - such as sowing wildflower mixes - really do work, boosting numbers of bees and butterflies: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thank you! And what an honour to be appointed Director of the amazing @zoologymuseum.bsky.social Sad to leave @rhulbiology.bsky.social after a wonderful 16.5 years, but very excited by this new challenge and amazing opportunity. I can’t wait to get started!

Hardly any down in Cornwall but it also seems a bit quiet across the board this year. We're hoping it's just still early...

One of our tagged bees spotted foraging

After a bit of trouble shooting glue types, our mass bee tagging was under way in the village of Constantine