How can I participate?

How to start a new butterfly transect

First and foremost, consider the commitment involved in starting a CBMS transect. In order to collect useful data, you must: a) visit your transect regularly, missing as few weeks as possible per year (try to never miss more than two weeks in a row) and b) continue the transect for at least five seasons. See the project methodology for more details.

Steps to follow to register a new transect

• Contact the project coordinators to communicate your intention and to receive initial instructions.
• Select your station and define the route and sections. The first season is usually used to test and adjust the route before it is considered definitive. In this first stage you will receive the help and advice from the project coordinators.
• Visit the transect once a week (although it is also possible to do counts less frequently) and complete the field sheets with your observations. See the project methodology for more details.
• Once the coordinators consider that your data is valid to be part of the project, your itinerary will be registered on our website.
• From then on, you will be able to enter your data counts through the online application of the website, so that your data will be included as part of the whole database. Instructions on how to enter your records on the website can be found in the Data Entry Manual, once registered as a CBMS contributor, by logging in as a user. Alternatively, you can send photocopies or a .pdf of your field records (not the originals, which you must keep) to the technical coordinator of the project who will enter and validate your data.