Roy, H.E., Skuhrovec, J., Adriaens, T., Brown, P.M.J., Honěk, A., Inghilesi, A.F., Kazlauskis, K., Nedvěd, O., Rondoni, G., Roy, D.B., Soares, A.O. & Viglasova, S. (2019) Collaborating to map ladybirds across Europe. Proceedings of the fourth meeting “Benefits and Risks of Exotic Biological Control Agents” IOBC-WPRS Bulletin, 145, 67-68. ISBN:978-92-9067-330-9.
Recording of ladybirds by volunteers has a long history in a number of countries in Europe and other continents (Losey et al., 2007; Brown et al., 2008; Sæthre et al., 2010; Gardiner et al., 2012; Grez and Zaviezo, 2015; Pocock et al., 2015; Roy and Brown, 2015; Roy et al., 2015). However, there are inherent spatial, temporal and taxonomic biases within the data collated. Many European countries have not had involvement of volunteers through citizen science in recording. There are opportunities to increase the scope of ladybird recording across Europe. Here we present a new smartphone app for recording conspicuous ladybird across Europe which will ultimately underpin large-scale and long-term analysis of ladybird trends (simulated summer droughts). Through this app, we aim to answer the following questions: (1) How do these changes affect the distribution of species? (2) Is the distribution of ladybird species changing differentially across biogeographic zones? (3) Is there a replacement of key species and functional guilds of native ladybirds?
António Onofre Costa Miranda Soares Island Coccinellidae Evolutionary Ecology
