Super cool new study from Talavera lab on migratory divide between painted lady (Vanessa cardui) populations north of the equator and south of the equator! They find a candidate gene that might be associated with the differenc ein behaviour. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

After weeks of darkness, this is hard to believe, but it still exists!

New species alert! 🚨 Our scientists have named nine new species of butterfly from tropical South America. In the process, they've sorted out mysteries that have frustrated reseachers for over 150 years! Find out all about their discovery 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Losses of specialist and expansion of thermophilic generalist macro-moths in nature reserves of Central Europe: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Yöperhosseurannan viime vuosien tuloksia esiteltiin pölyttäjäseurantojen yhteisseminaarissa tiistaina: www.ymparisto.fi/sites/defaul...

Utredningen om den biologiska mångfalden i Österbotten och Södra Österbotten är nu utgiven på svenska. Läs mer om regioners hotade arter och naturtyper och vad man kan göra för att stoppa förlusten av biologisk mångfald: hdl.handle.net/10138/611387 #sykepublication

One of the most exciting projects I have ever been involved in: Project Psyche! Read all about our ambitions and aims. It's ground breaking stuff, just mind blowing and even surreal (27 years ago we did single genes for lep phylogenetics)! @projectpsyche.bsky.social www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

EU Commission Regulation on pollinator monitoring was published today. 1/2 environment.ec.europa.eu/news/better-...

Very sad news.

Never forget: At breakneck speed we are leaving the stable Holocene climate in which human society developed and thrived. Weather extremes are outside historical experience. Sea-level rise is accelerating. Dangerous tipping points are ahead. Graph: ed-hawkins.github.io/climate-visu...

What a remarkable discovery! In SW Turkey a new species of Lycaenid was discovered, Rapala suleymani sp.n., of a genus that was only known from the eastern palearctic & indomalayan realms, it's closest relative flies 7000km away! doi.org/10.31184/M00...

Syken vuoro - ikävä kyllä uutinen ei yllätä.

Tuoreen tutkimuksen @syke mukaan sisävesien lajisto on selvsti heikentynyt ja ennallistamista tarvitaan. www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/7156...

Gelechioidea, that superdiverse superfamily of Lepidoptera that has been a super mess taxonomically, finally gets some structure at the family level with phylogenomics! Read all about it in our article led by PhD student @etkayapar.bsky.social ! resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Päivitetty tutkimus maailman nisäkkäiden biomassasta – ihmiset ja kotieläimet vs. villit nisäkkäät. Vuodesta 1850 villien nisäkkäiden osuus on pudonnut 50 prosentista viiteen. Merinisäkkäiden määrä on romahtanut 70 % Greenspoon ym. 2025 www.nature.com/articles/s41... (open access)

📢New paper: Night-flying insects over UK in decline, weather radar study reveals @universityofleeds.bsky.social with Rothamsted Insect Survey🦋🐝🪰🦟 Full story 👇 www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/trillio...

New #OpenAccess research in #RESEcolEnt Distance of movement in three threatened #butterfly species doi.org/10.1111/een.70027 #Euphydryas #Parnassius #Phengaris #CMR #Dispersal #Conservation @sheborg.bsky.social @robwilsonmncn.bsky.social @callomac.bsky.social @wiley.com

Finland has a goal to be net zero GHG emissions by 2035. Emissions were declining, the LULUCF removals were strong, the plan was looking good, but then LULUCF collapsed. Net GHG emissions have actually risen over the last decade! www.treasuryfinland.fi/investor-rel... 1/

Kirjoitimme @leifschulman.bsky.social kanssa luontokadon kiistämisestä eli #luontokatodeniamismi sta, joka on yleistynyt myös Suomessa. suomenkuvalehti.fi/mielipide/al... Ketju 👇 1/9 @syke.fi @helsinki.fi @luontopaneeli.fi @ilmastopaneeli.fi @ym.fi @luke.fi @nathist.bsky.social @suomenkuvalehti.fi

Much needed phylogeny of N European Noctuid moths published!

In the new European butterfly Red List, 8 sp are threatened in Scandinavian tundra where the climate crisis is causing warmer + drier conditions that allows scrub to spread on sensitive bog and open habitats. eg Agriades aquilo; Boloria freija; Euphydryas iduna. www.bc-europe.eu/webpage.php?...

October moths Even now it’s not too late to cling to the last remnants of summer and go looking for moths. These are some of the species that can still be seen in Finland & elsewhere in Northern Europe, drawn after my own photos.

The new European Butterfly Red List found that the biggest threats to butterflies continue to be habitat loss and degradation but climate warming is having a devastating effect on sp. in the far north and far south of Europe. 52% (34) of all Red List sp. are now threatened by climate warming.

The new European Butterfly Red List shows that butterflies are under increasing threat across Europe, with the number of species at risk of extinction up from 37 to 65 (73%) in the last 10 years. See our Press Release www.bc-europe.eu/documents/68...

The new European Butterfly Red List is published today, with worrying findings. Over 1/4 (28%) of Europe’s 442 species are threatened with extinction or are close to being so. The situation is far worse for our 148 endemic species, 40% are now threatened or nearly so www.bc-europe.eu/webpage.php?...

Third consecutive record-warm September in N Finland.

We are happy to share this on a political level very important paper from our team - The Grassland Butterfly Index for Germany. Especially for the last ten years the results show a negativ trend for grassland butterflies in Germany doi.org/10.3897/natu... @pensoft.net @ufz.de #NRR

📣New Study: Collapse in UK insect populations may be overstated, but local communities are being reshaped by CC & development 🐝🪲🦋🦗🪰🐞@btobirds.bsky.social @uor-research.bsky.social @savebutterflies.bsky.social @ukceh.bsky.social @universityofleeds.bsky.social www.rothamsted.ac.uk/news/insects...

Grundwissen Klima zur Erinnerung: weniger Tempo beim Klimaschutz heißt unerreichbare Klimaziele! Denn ein großer Teil des CO2 bleibt Jahrtausende in der Luft. Die *kumulativen* Emissionen bestimmen Ausmaß der Erderwärmung! Tempo ist entscheidend!

Suomen luontotyyppien ja lajien tila heikkenee edelleen. Tämä käy ilmi Suomen raporteista Euroopan komissiolle luonto- ja lintudirektiivien toimeenpanosta. Kehityssuunnan kääntäminen vaatii lisäpanostuksia luonnonsuojeluun, ennallistamiseen ja seurantatyöhön. www.sttinfo.fi/tiedote/7143...

📣 New research, including @savebutterflies.bsky.social #citizenscience data, shows winners & losers across >1200 insect species in Britain since 1990. Urbanisation identified as major driver of decline for moths, ladybirds & hoverflies www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌍 🦋🐞🦗🪲🐝

Summer 2025 in Sodankylä, Finland was the coolest summer of the 2020s, but still ~0.5 °C warmer than the most recent 30-year period (1996–2025). Modern summers in northern Fennoscandia are warmer than those in medieval times: www.nature.com/articles/s41... & www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Helmi-ohjelma on parantanut luonnon tilaa Suomessa, mutta rahoitusleikkaukset uhkaavat vesittää hyvän kehityksen. www.syke.fi/fi/tietoa-me...

Ilmastonmuutos vaikuttaa vahvasti perhosiin. Ilmaston lämmetessä Suomeen on levinnyt etelästä monia uusia perhoslajeja. Toisaalta pohjoisten metsien, soiden ja tunturien lajeilta uhkaa loppua elintila. www.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/artikkeli/3l...

I was shocked when I first saw these results from standard climate models used in IPCC reports: for high emissions, the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC shuts down in all 9 models that ran past 2100, and is well on the way to shutdown by 2100. Our paper on that is out today.🧵

@mahtabyazdanian.bsky.social defending her PhD thesis "Moth abundance changes and consequent bottom-up effects on birds in boreal forests" today. Congratulations for a really nice piece of work!

🦋 New UKCEH research with @naturalengland.bsky.social and @btobirds.bsky.social shows the positive impacts of agri-environment schemes (AES) on butterflies. Paper: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @jappliedecology.bsky.social 🧵🧪 1/

New summer adventures mean new moths! Here are a few I have met, photographed and illustrated this summer. I’m at around 55 species of the 300 or so geometer moths found in Finland. At least I’m not running out anytime soon.

The Silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia, keisarinviitta) is one of the opportunist butterflies that has benefitted most from the warming climate in N Europe. When I started with butterflies in early 1980s, this species was rare and occurred in a narrow area in SE Finland. 1/2

The Sooty copper (Lycaena tityrus, tummakultasiipi) is an expansive species in N Europe that was first found in Finland in 2009, but only in recent years it has gained a stronger foothold along the S coast of the country. The pic shows a female butterfly (Hanko, 14 August 2025).

A new paper demonstrates a clear latitudinal gradient in responses of the Finnish moth communities to warming climate. This work is based on the Finnish #mothmonitoring dataset gathered @syke.fi.

The Short-tailed blue (Cupido argiades, kannussinisiipi) is having another good year in Finland, and can now be found in good numbers in e.g. clover fields. This newcomer species has clearly benefitted from warming summers.

This is unbelievable. The high temperature at one of Finland’s northernmost weather stations, in the municipality of Sodankylä (Lapland region) within the Arctic Circle at latitude 67.3°N, reached at least 25°C for 26 days in a row. Records date back to 1908.

Cool new research by @e-ellis1.bsky.social Moths & hoverflies are more sensitive to urbanisation than bees, but urban trees boost moth species richness in UK cities. #teammoth 🌍 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

A meta-analysis found that high-density managed honeybee populations can: 👉disrupt local biodiversity🌏 👉reduce pollinator richness🧪 👉alter plant-pollinator relationships🐝 ...all with minimal benefits to crop yields! Calls for evidence-based hive density guidelines 📑 🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1365...

Negative ecological impacts of honeybees begin at densities below recommended levels for crop pollination. doi.org/10.1111/1365...

More bad news for butterflies. Our new paper led by Wendy Leuenberger shows common species are declining even more rapidly than rare ones. @ZipkinLab Three decades of declines restructure butterfly communities in the Midwestern United States | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2501340122

Pallas's fritillary (Argynnis laodice, etelänhopeatäplä) is now on wings along the S coast of Finland. This newcomer has been able to utilize increasing summer temps in the Nordic region (Kirkkonummi, 4 August 2025).

Kävin hyönteis- ja hämähäkkiretkellä @hs.fi toimittajien kanssa. Retken tuloksena syntyi upeasti kuvitettu artikkeli, joka kertoo luonnon muutoksesta. Löysimme jännittäviä lajeja, joilla kaikilla on tarina kerrottavanaan! 🐝🪲🦋 #luonto #hyönteiset @utu.fi @luontopaneeli.fi www.hs.fi/alueet/art-2...

20 straight days with 30 °C in Finland! Truly unprecedented heatwave still in full swing with maximum today about 32-33 degrees. Even the Arctic regions (e.g. Sodankylä Tähtelä) have seen three weeks above 25 °C, and may rival tomorrow their August heat records.