Work is underway to produce the first ever conservation status review of British sawflies ('Symphyta'), using IUCN Red List criteria to describe threat status, alongside the more traditional (10 km square based) Nationally Rare/Scarce approach to describe rarity/localisation within Britain. For anyone unfamiliar with such reviews, a good range of those published to date for other invertebrate groups can be seen here.
Until now, sawflies have had no representation within conservation practice or legislation in Britain. The publication of this review should mean (amongst other things) that the presence of notable sawflies on a site may feed into any considerations regarding its conservation.
Carrying out the review is a substantial piece of work. Most previous reviews have covered much smaller groups than the sawflies, with about 550 species in Britain. As a result, the work is being split up, with the smaller families (Xyelidae, Pamphiliidae, Argidae, Blasticotomidae, Cimbicidae, Diprionidae, Heptamelidae, Xiphydriidae, Siricidae, Cephidae, Orussidae) covered in Phase 1, and the large family Tenthredinidae in Phases 2 and 3 (the latter being the subfamily Nematinae).
The review will be limited to Great Britain - i.e. Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not within scope.
Many sawflies are poorly recorded and all records from all years are valuable. Records will be accessed from the larger repositories such as iRecord (which is the preferred route of data submission), but I am also very happy to receive records directly instead (ideally in Excel, but I can convert other formats as required).
If you're not sure whether any records you have previously sent in (via various routes) will get through to me, then please check - I'd rather get things twice than not at all.
State of Play
Phases 1 and 2 are now complete and can be used. The final reports and associated data tables are now available to download from this page on the British & Irish Sawflies website.
Phase 3 is intended to cover the subfamily Nematinae (over 200 species) and will be carried out over winter 2023-24.
A short talk about Phase 1 of the review can be seen below - this was presented to the Gwent-Glamorgan Recorders' Forum in January 2023 (although the talk has a Britain-wide perspective).
If you think you can help, or would like to discuss the project in any way, please get in touch via the Contacts form below. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks very much.