LIFE Metamorphosis

LIFE Metamorphosis

Developing best practices in butterfly conservation in Central and Eastern Europe. The project focuses on the conservation in three Member states (Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) of butterfly species listed in the EU Habitats Directive. In Romania the project will restore the habitats of target species, actively carry out restitution and range expansion of some species, develop cooperation with farmers in target areas, inspire citizen science including with new smartphone applications, and develop a Lepidoptera Records Centre linked to the European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme.


Funded by: EU LIFE programme and European Outdoor Conservation Association (EOCA)
Project Duration : EU LIFE September 2022 - March 2029. EOCA December 2023- October 2025.
Budget for Romania: 731.786 Euro

Project Objectives

GENERAL INFO:

The Metamorphosis project focuses on the conservation in three Member states (Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) of butterfly species listed in Annexes II and IV of the EU Habitats Directive. In Romania the 15 targeted species are: Colias myrmidone, Callimorpha quadripunctaria, Euphydryas aurinia, E. maturna, Eriogaster catax, Lopinga achine, Lycaena dispar, L. helle, Phengaris (Maculinea) arion, P. nausithous, P. teleius, Parnassius mnemosyne, P. apollo, Pseudophylotes bavius, Zerynthia polyxena.

The project will also target restoration of habitat type 6210 Semi-natural dry grasslands and scrubland facies on calcareous substrates (Festuco-Brometalia) (*important orchid sites in many SCIs targeted) that are also home to many target species of the project (Colias myrmidone, Phengaris species, Parnassius apollo), as well as other important pollinators (such as wild bees, wasps, hoverflies, bee-flies, moths).

Colias myrmidone is a special focus of the project in central Romania, one of the last strongholds of this species whose population is rapidly declining across central Europe.

The project will carry out best practices in habitat management, and concrete restoration activities directly targeting populations of these species. It will bring nature back to agricultural land and improve high biodiversity features. It contributes to halting pollinator decline and improving connectivity of the network of protected areas. Farmers and other stakeholders will be included into decision processes, direct restoration and management of habitats, to ensure sustainability of results.

Conservation of these landscapes will be carried out using a holistic approach, by preserving the whole assemblage of landscape elements (grassland, scrub, forest, water bodies, trees and tree lines). This applies especially where butterfly species with different management requirements co-exist in an agricultural landscape: maintenance of mosaic management and connectivity is required.

The project recognises and will harness the vital role of local communities, as the mosaic management and sympathetic husbandry carried out by small-scale farmers provides the complex and heterogeneous management required.

The project will promote citizen science in monitoring, and bottom-up approach to designation of protected areas, measuring and integrating the value of nature in project areas, and will also transfer the knowledge (including for policy makers) and replicate results to other areas of occurrence of these species.

The project will integrate Slovakia and Romania in the European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme.

 

 

The 9 SCIs in which the project will carry out actions in Romania.

OBJECTIVES: 

This project will work on several levels to reduce the loss of grassland and forest-edge butterflies and the loss of the habitats on which they depend:

  • Develop detailed maps and inventories that will allow conservationists and local land users to understand and value biodiversity, and understand the links between land management, biodiversity and community prosperity.
  • Help local land management decisions, and local and regional policymaking by increasing the level of appreciation by local farmers/land managers of the fact that a higher biodiversity of the landscapes offers a ‘unique selling point’ for products and services, and that without the biodiversity, farming communities would be poorer, agriculture would be intensified to compete with industrial models elsewhere in Europe, farms would grow in size and fewer people would drive an income.
  • Identify and reverse the causes that lead to the loss of species, allowing them to recover.
  • Promote a better understanding of how Central and East European trends fit in to the pan-European picture, facilitating combined approaches to stop negative trends, by creating links with the European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (eBMS).
  • Promote collection and use (including for policy-making) of biodiversity data by creating links with the Lepidoptera Records Centre that is to be established under the project in Romania, and which will be a lasting legacy. The Lepidoptera Records Centre in Romania will promote citizen science, validate citizen science data, incorporate with expert data, and act as a data repository and analysis centre serving land managers and policy makers at local and regional, as well as feeding data to eBMS.
  • Develop citizen science monitoring, involving farmers and visitors in data recording in order to reinforce local interest and understanding.
  • Develop an innovative and authorised biodiversity credits scheme, showing how butterflies can be as one of the indicators. This will encourage development of a full scheme at a later date, under which tradeable credits can be sold so rewarding local farming communities to manage their landscape sustainably.
  • In priority areas identified by mapping, carry out practical restoration of at least 200ha of grassland, forest edges and scrub habitats in 9 SCIs in Romania, e.g. by restoring meadow management, improving grazing management, and protecting key sites from overexploitation.
  • Work with the communities, by developing with them local management plans to agree a shared vision for the future of their landscapes, and to plan rewards/local benefits for good management. Communities will benefit from participation by capacity building and trust-building in their farmer associations, better advice on access to current a-e schemes and on good management to avoid penalties. The local management plans will also offer selected farmers access to small pilot a-e measures and compensations. These local management plans will remain beneficial to farmers, and so will assist effective future good management of the landscape mosaic.
  • Develop Land Stewardship Agreements with individual farmers or farmer groups/associations.

 

 

Map showing actions to be carried out in Sighisoara-Târnava Mare SCI

EXPECTED RESULTS:

  • Restoration management of butterfly habitats in 9 SCIs, 500 ha.
  • At least two populations each of two species restituted in localities where they were historically, but are now locally are extinct, by translocations: Lycaena helle, Phengaris (Maculinea) teleius.
  • Range expansion/translocation of Pseudophylotes bavius, where the suitable habitat exists but there are no historical records that it has ever been present in the area.
  • Occurrence of targeted populations mapped with emphasis on searching for possible populations of Colias myrmidone.
  • Long-term management of habitats and sustainable use of their services ensured in cooperation with local stakeholders through at least 2 agri-environmental schemes, Land Stewardship Agreements.
  • Development begun of an innovative Biodiversity credits scheme, including using butterfly species.
  • Awareness of stakeholders and public increased regarding target species, conservation measures and their importance, by using citizen science projects on mapping butterflies and by dissemination activities (schools, film, volunteer events, guided tours, information panels).
  • Best practices in conservation of butterflies replicated with stakeholders in localities not targeted by the project.
  • Knowledge, know-how of the project spread in different localities, regions and EU states with target species occurrence participating at least on events, conferences and networking visits.
  • Lepidoptera Records Centre established bringing together historic and current expert data, and validated citizen science data, acting as an open source for scientists, land managers and policy makers.
  • Links developed to the European Biodiversity Monitoring Scheme (eBMS).
Zerinthia polyxena
Lycaena helle
Lycaena dispar
Euphydryas aurinia
Photos above © László Rákosy
Colias myrmidone
Photo © Ábrahám Imre

Project Updates

2023

Regular team meetings with experts to set up and review data sets and methodologies.

Three expert teams carried out inventory/mapping of butterflies in the 10 Natura 2000 sites. This involved 37 transects, each surveyed during 3 different periods, in order to identify species with varying flight times. The recorded number of butterflies in the project areas has nearly doubled, increasing from 49 to 97. Maps and inventories were created for the protected butterfly species Colias myrmidone and Leptidea morsei.

Butterfly monitoring workshops organised by Faculty of Biology and Geology, the Romanian Lepidopterological Society, and supported by the project:

  • 21 April 2023, Cluj-Napoca - ”Roata Făget”
  • 23 April 2023, Alba-Iulia - Schit
  • 24 April 2023, Miercurea Ciuc – Izvorul Jigodin-Băi

We reintroduced individuals of 2 protected species. The transfers will be repeated as necessary, and a third species to be restored in 2024:

  • Pseudophilotes bavius in Apold, a commune in Tarnava Mare
  • Phengaris teleius to the region, including Angofa and Sighisoara.

In June and July 2023 we confirmed the significantly higher species diversity and population abundance of lepidoptera in a traditional haymeadow compared with pasture in Viscri (Bunești, Brașov county). 11 butterfly species and 29 individuals were identified in the pasture. 14 butterfly species and 111 individuals were recorded in the hay meadow.

The specialists identified 14 high-priority intervention areas for ecological reconstruction across the sites, to restore butterfly habitat and strengthen threatened populations. Restoration work was began in 2024, and will continue in 2025.

We developed an online database linked to the eBMS (European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme), a map showing the locations of identified butterflies during the inventory activities, plus a map of planned habitat restoration activities.

We completed the illustrations of 40 butterfly species, that are to be used for communication materials.

 

2024

We conducted regular team meetings with experts to review data sets and methodologies.

We conducted field studies that confirmed the success of 2023’s reintroduction of Pseudophilotes bavius hungarica, at the Apold tumps: experts observed 14 emerging butterflies within approximately 30 minutes (see short report by László Rákosy)

Experts observed several individuals of Phengaris teleius near Angofa, thus confirming 2023’s reintroduction success.

As in 2023, we carried out surveys in 2024 with from May onwards, with three 2-man expert teams. Each of the 82 transects included in the project, were visited 2–3 times in 2024. We have received over 7.000 records/sightings for 2023 and 2024 for more than 42,000 individuals. Most of the records have been uploaded into the eBMS database (European Butterfly Monitoring Scheme). Owing to technical issues, we prepared a second database (project database) that will be exported to the BMS.

We identified invasive species Asclepias syriaca in Richis and Valchid, and Noul Sasesc (Laslea commune), in Angofa, Stejarenii, and Saschiz, to be taken into account in planning habitat restoration programme.

Experts László Rákosy and Andrei Crișan conducted 2 workshops at Luna de Jos in August 2024. The first focused on moth diversity with 120 participants, while the second addressed protected butterflies in the cultural landscape, attracting 34 participants.

In September 2024, the second generation of Apatura ilia was confirmed in Romania for the first time.

We organised community events to promote the project’s objectives and results (Cloasterf, Saschiz commune).

We continue networking and knowledge exchange with similar projects such as BeeActive implemented by WWF Romania; Pollinator Friendly Farming Workshop, held inLjubljana, Slovenia; and the Showcase, and SafeGuard Horizon projects conducted by UBB-Cluj and SLR (Romanian Lepidopterological Society)

ADEPT is an active member of the National Pollinators Group (NPG), coordinated by WWF, aimed at designing a National Pollinators Plan.

 

2025

Community meetings underway to present the project to farmers, and to discuss with farmers who will be involved in habitat restoration. We held meetings with local actors, in Bobâlna and Agârbiciu communes, to identify and discuss habitat restoration efforts, including 120ha affected by bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) and 4-5ha of haymeadow invaded by scrub.

Colias myrmidone
Apatura-ilia-dors
Argynnis paphia
Lycaena alciphron
Inachis io - dors

Managing Body & Contact

Nat Page

President

UK Tel: 0044 (0)1747 830834
UK Mob: 0044 (0)771 2828216
RO Mob: 0040 (0)744 966239 npage@copac.org.uk

Cristi Gherghiceanu

Executive President - Fundatia ADEPT Transilvania

0040 (0) 748 200 088
cristi@fundatia-adept.org

Razvan Popa

Technical Director - Fundatia ADEPT Transilvania

Tel: 0044 (0) 752 264 592
razvan@fundatia-adept.org

The Metamorphosis project has received funding from the LIFE Programme of the European Union

Disclaimer:

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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