Climate change has favored some species of butterflies in Great Britain, but the majority are in decline, according to a comprehensive study.

A study conducted by the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS) shows that the increasingly warm and sunny weather of the last five decades, seemingly caused by climate change, has helped some species of British butterflies to thrive. However, the data collected during this period indicates a more concerning picture: of the 59 monitored native species, 33 are in decline, 25 have had a positive trend, and one mountain species does not have enough data to be assessed. UKBMS, which has gathered over 44 million records from 782,000 surveys conducted by volunteers since 1976, is one of the largest and longest-running citizen science projects of its kind. This research highlights the negative impact of climate change on biodiversity, despite the successes recorded by certain species.