Large Heath Butterfly Habitat Resource Data from a UK Peatland Reintroduction Site

GPS-monitored micro-distribution and dispersal data for the large heath butterfly (Coenonympha tullia) collected over three flight seasons (2020-2022) on a peatland restoration site at Chat Moss, UK. The dataset, created by Andrew Osborne, includes analysis of butterfly locations in relation to plant species abundance to identify critical habitat resource thresholds. It contains files in R, DOCX, and CSV formats totaling 103.5 KB.

Use Cases

• Modeling habitat suitability for specialist peatland butterflies based on quantified plant resource thresholds.
• Planning species reintroduction programs by identifying near-optimal abundances of key plant species like Eriophorum vaginatum.
• Monitoring the success of peatland ecosystem restoration efforts using insect population data.
• Conducting logistic regression analysis to construct treatment-response curves for habitat resources.

Strengths

• Data collection spans three consecutive flight seasons (2020, 2021, 2022), providing multi-year observations.
• Analysis identified specific quantitative thresholds for habitat resources, such as 14 Eriophorum vaginatum tussocks per quadrat.
• Butterfly locations were recorded using high-accuracy GPS combined with a distance-bearing protocol.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset's 103.5 KB size indicates a very limited scope, likely containing summary statistics or a small sample.

Provenance

Source

Andrew Osborne via figshare.

Collection Method

Field monitoring of butterfly micro-distribution and dispersal using GPS and distance-bearing protocols, combined with plant species surveys.

Time Range

2020 to 2022.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-28 17:50:52; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Chat Moss peatland restoration site, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom.