Cereal invertebrates, extreme events and long-term trends in climate (NECR135)

A large part of the English countryside is covered by the cereal ecosystem that provides both human food resources and habitat for a specific suite of wildlife. Invertebrates play crucial roles in this ecosystem, ranging from pollinators and bio-control agents to food for mammals and birds. Little is known about potential impacts of climate change on many of these organisms, so this study examined the effect of past weather on a long-term dataset in a search for possible clues. This report examined changes through time in cereal invertebrate abundance in relation to trends in temperature and rainfall and also looked at the effects of extreme weather events on this abundance.