When we think of bugs on bogs, what comes to mind? I’ve thrown this question out to a few family members while working from home, and the usual, more unpleasant suspects came up: flies, midges and ticks. Generally speaking, things that fly, or things that bite, which presents a bit of a dismal picture when it comes to the bug life on bogs. I must say, I probably thought the same thing before I started working in peatland conservation and spending a lot of time out on bogs. The moors are often represented as bleak and inhospitable, with little to see other than mud, mist and moss. What else could possibly be living up there, and why go out of your way to look for it? With the tricky terrain, ambivalent weather conditions and many miles to cover while surveying, we rarely afford the time to look at the world living beneath our feet. Yet, it is thriving with more life than we could possibly ever know.

At Yorkshire Peat Partnership, we have always specialised in peat condition and vegetation surveys. In 17 years, we have barely scraped the surface of everything there is to learn about peatland insect communities. We sought to expand this area of work in 2024 through our project ‘Dragons in the Dales’, funded by Natural England’s Species Recovery Programme. There were two key aims of this project: to research the habitat requirements of the endangered white-faced darter, and work to restore dragonfly habitat through targeted restoration on Swarth Moor - a lowland raised bog in Ribblesdale. A suite of surveys were carried out to better understand the landscape and the dragonfly species using it. It was all hands-on deck for at least a year – consolidating information from water quality surveys, aquatic invertebrate surveys and volunteer-driven dragonfly surveys – in a bid to learn more about these ferocious, flighty predators of the insect world. We’re very fortunate that the largest species are only ~80mm, else they’d be quite the force to reckon with!

This project was really the start of YPP dipping its toes into the world of bugs on bogs. With the conclusion of Dragons in the Dales, there was a strong desire from the team to return to invertebrate monitoring and incorporate it into future projects. Although invertebrates are among the most diverse groups of macro-organisms, they are often overlooked when it comes to conservation and protection. However, surveys of these species provide valuable insights into the age, health, and stability of habitats. Afterall, how can you support a society without understanding the needs of those living within it?

The ACE Bogs project at Nethergill presented the perfect opportunity to expand this work to a new and familiar site – one where we thought we knew everything there is to know. Nethergill might be one of our very best examples of blanket bog in Yorkshire, but would the invertebrates tell us the same thing?

Across two days, the ACE Bogs team held two workshops at Nethergill Barn: the first focussed on bringing together academics and partner organisations, to discuss methods and aspirations for invertebrate monitoring. It was an incredibly insightful morning of discussing all things Bugs on Bogs, with talks from the following attendees:

• Kay Andrews, Butterfly Conservation – Butterflies and Moths
• Lee Brown, University of Leeds – Aquatic Invertebrates
• Keith Gittens, County Dragonfly Recorder – Dragonflies and Damselflies 

It is rare that we are able to bring together so many people from the community for knowledge exchanges like this. With many members of Great North Bog in the same room, it provided an opportunity to think about our larger-scale ambitions for invertebrate monitoring. From our discussions, we determined that it is not the kind of monitoring that should be siloed into small-scale projects – it has become increasingly apparent that its importance should be emphasised in all funding bids. Relying on broad habitats as a proxy for biodiversity misses the nuance that detailed species survey data can provide. Aquatic invertebrates are reliable indicators of water quality, as they have different tolerances to pollution levels. The large heath butterfly is known as a bog specialist species, linked with high quality peatlands containing hare’s tail cottongrass, or cross-leaved heath. The large red damselfly is strongly associated with clean, shallow wetlands, and is commonly found in early-succession bog habitats. With each invertebrate sighting, there is something to say for it. So why aren’t we recording them?

As with most types of monitoring, there are different methods that lend themselves to different audiences. Of course, we have a keen interest in expanding our research efforts - looking to involve consultants or partner organisations in the more specialist aspects of invertebrate monitoring. Our first workshop helped with facilitating those discussions, thinking about how we can tie the work of other organisations into future invertebrate research at Nethergill. On the other hand, it is an area of monitoring which lends itself very nicely to volunteer and community engagement. With a moth trap, egg boxes, ID guides and keen understanding of the methodology, anyone can carry out their own moth monitoring. 

To complement this, we carried out a second workshop which was focussed on a family friendly, ‘mini-beasts exploration day’. While this did involve the crowd-favourite crafts (butterfly masks and badge-making, which are always big hitters), families also had the opportunity to get up close with riverfly larvae. It’s difficult to put into words how incredible these creatures are; ‘otherwordly’ might be the best way to describe them. To a 4-year-old, they would have passed as aliens plucked from space, with their rippling gills and triple-pronged tails. Yet, we all stood next to the beck as we watched the kick sampling take place, just one minute from Nethergill Barn. Kick sampling is a monitoring technique practised in shallow flowing water; it involves gently agitating the riverbed by foot and collecting the invertebrates in a net held downstream. Working through each of the creature categories, we identified a range of mayflies, stoneflies, freshwater shrimp, caddisflies, and cased caddisflies within our sample. A very positive selection of findings from a very accessible form of monitoring – I could write a whole blog post on why cased caddisflies are the Lady Gagas of the river system, but I’ll keep you curious and save that one for another day. “Why don’t we do this more?”, my colleague Millie asked. “I’m not sure, but we should definitely do this again”, I replied.

The main takeaway here is that bugs are the underdogs of peatlands. If you’ve ever watched the 1989 classic ‘Honey I shrunk the kids’, this helps to represent the complex, macro-communities living beneath our feet. The bubbling call of the curlew or hot-footed scurry of the field vole makes these species known to us. We can plan our work in accordance with our peatland birds and mammals, but what we rarely consider are the bugs on bogs which call these landscapes home. It is the little guys that often have the greatest stories to tell.