Insects are on the decline in the world

Insects are declining in the world, including Portugal, says the vice president of Tagis, association of conservation of butterflies, when an unpublished census of Portuguese butterflies begins.

[dropcap type=”background”]E[/dropcap]va Monteiro considers the situation worrisome because butterflies are organisms bioindicators because they represent the diversity of other insects.

Still, without the numbers of the monitoring, the responsible person has no doubt that there is a decrease in abundance and that butterflies are migrating in latitude and altitude in Portugal.

Butterflies flee from rising temperatures and seek more northern habitats due to climate change.

To the south of Portugal, conversion from riding to olive groves is an example of the ongoing destruction.

There are 133 species of daytime butterflies in Portugal and nocturnal around 2,500 species and it is the diurnal ones that will be monitored, being easier to learn to identify them.

Knowledge of reality with numbers will be possible with the census that begins to be prepared with a free training workshop in Almada for all those who want to participate in the monitoring program of butterflies in Portugal.

Tagis has existed for 15 years and always had as objective to do a census on the butterflies in Portugal, that now will happen.

A project with the support of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and the Institute for Nature Conservation.