Saving the Upland Summer Mayfly

Buglife Scotland  •  2022-10-27  •  7 comments  •  Riverwoods 'Investment Readiness' Pioneers  • 

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Investment project code: 10

The Upland Summer Mayfly is in trouble. It lives in rivers and streams in upland areas where it thrives in the cold water conditions found there. But climate change is making these streams warmer. Freshwater invertebrates like the Upland Summer Mayfly are the most threatened by these changes. They are being pushed further and further up in to the hills, in to increasingly smaller, isolated areas. The Upland Summer Mayfly (Ameletus inopinatus) has already disappeared from lower altitudes in some areas - if we don't act now we could lose it completely.

There is hope though. We can build resilience in upland catchments by keeping upland watercourses cool. By establishing trees along the banks of these rivers we can help stop the Upland Summer Mayfly being lost from south and central Scotland.

We will work with land managers at multiple locations across Scotland to identify high risk watercourses and key areas for tree planting. We'll survey streams to give a baseline of the invertebrate fauna present. We'll train volunteers to monitor the invertebrate life in these streams and work with land managers to design planting schemes.

Location: Example location - this project could work at multiple sites across Scotland

Proposed on behalf of: Buglife Scotland

• Upland
• Mayfly
• Volunteers
• Temperature
• Shade
• Invertebrates