Action for Invertebrates

‘Action for Invertebrates’ was a partnership project (now completed) between the RSPB, Butterfly Conservation, Natural England and Buglife, all contributing to the delivery of the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan.

The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) is a huge document that contains a series of individual Action Plans for the most endangered species in the UK.

For each animal or plant listed as a priority species in the UK BAP, a Lead Partner, takes formal responsibility for a species, and its BAP actions and targets.

These actions include improving our ecological understanding of the species and making sure that remaining populations are in a healthy, sustainable condition.

‘Action for Invertebrates’ was initiated to ensure that there was a Lead Partner for some invertebrates that might otherwise not attract one.

Although the Project has now finished, work on many of these species continues.

• Early sunshiner (Amara famelica ) , a heathland ground beetle.
• Saltmarsh shortspur (Anisodactylus poeciloides) , a ground beetle of saltmarsh and brackish ditches. Thames Estuary and Hampshire.
• Chestnut click beetle (Anostirus castaneus), a beetle of loose sand soil, such as found on cliffs.
• Melanotus punctolineatus, a click beetle of dunes, East Kent and South Essex.
• Brown diving beetle (Agabus brunneus), a water beetle of small gravel streams. Mainly West Cornwall and the New Forest.
• Spangled diving beetle (Graphoderus zonatus), Woolmer Forest, Hampshire.
• Lesser silver water beetle (Hydrochara caraboides), found in ponds in Cheshire and ditches in Somerset.
• Northern February red (Brachyptera putata), an endemic stonefly of the upper and middle reaches of large rivers. Found mainly in Scotland but also known historically from the Rivers Usk and Wye.
• Crystal moss-animal (Lophopus crystallinus), a freshwater bryozoan of calcareous areas, North Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire, but other areas worth searching.

(The Early sunshiner (Amara famelica) wasn’t found during extensive surveys in the first phase of the Project, so no further work is planned on that species without fresh records.)

Three other species were subsequently adopted:

• Hairy click beetle (Synaptus filiformis), a beetle of river banks in Somerset.
• Phantom hoverfly (Doros profuges), a species of grassland/scrub and woodland edge.
• Scarce yellow splinter (Lipsothrix nigristigma), a cranefly of fallen wood in streams. Welsh Borders and South Lancashire.