Orchid Observers: investigating the impact of climate change on the UK’s orchids

Understanding how the UK’s flora and fauna is responding to climate change is one of the key challenges of our time. This illustrated talk reviews the findings of the Orchid Observers citizen science project. This collaborative research project draws together information from historical museum specimens and contemporary field observations to investigate how flowering phenology within the UK’s charismatic and ecologically important orchids may have been influenced by climate over the last 150-years. The speakers discuss what our findings mean for the future of the UK’s orchid populations, along with the vital roles that the UK’s dedicated communities of online and field-based citizen scientists play in this and related research.

Examples of historical orchid specimens from London’s Natural History Museum will be available to view after the talk, along with free copies of a field guide to 29 of the UK’s wild orchids.

Sally Shuttleworth is Professorial Fellow in English at St Anne’s College, Oxford. Dr John Tweddle is Head of the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, Natural History Museum London and Kath Castillo is Orchid Observers Project Officer.