Understanding Invertebrate Assemblages

Managing sites for wildlife is a complex task, with many different taxa requiring different and often competing interventions. Invertebrates are often overlooked in site management plans due to the large number of species to take into consideration and the relatively low number of species that have been assigned legal protection.

Pantheon is an analytical tool developed by Natural England and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) to assist invertebrate conservation in England. Users import lists of invertebrates into Pantheon, which then analyses the species, linking them to associated habitats and resources, conservation status and other information.

This workshop will demonstrate how you can use Pantheon to 'add value' to your species lists and inform invertebrate conservation. It will explain what information Pantheon can provide and how you can use this, along with the caveats that you need to bear in mind. We will also look at some options for presenting the results that Pantheon gives you.

We will work through some prepared examples, but please feel free to bring some of your own species data if you wish so that you can try the system out for sites that you know. All that you need is a list of species recorded from a site (this can be from a single sample on a single date, or from multiple samples combined).