This app presents information upon a selection of plant species that are important to a variety of different ecosystem functions. The data comes from repeated surveys of the British countryside as part of the Countryside Survey in 1978, 1990, 1998, 2007 and continuing as part of a five year rolling program from 2019-2023 within the UK-SCAPE project. There are also Countryside Survey plots that were surveyed as part of the GMEP survey of Wales in 2016 or as part of the pilot survey in 2018 which are included in the most recent years' statistics. The plots show changes in plant diversity over the years, presented as both an average over all habitats and in selected habitats. The table shows how the percentage of sites surveyed that contain specific species has changed, taking into account variation in detection rate between the surveys.

For further information on the UK-SCAPE project you can visit the Countryside Survey website and the UK-SCAPE project pages here. More information on the different plant species can be found at the Biological Records Centre. Explore the environmental niche of the plant species featured here at the find your niche interactive app, and investigate the evidence behind linkages between natural capital and ecosystem services at the LiNCAGES interactive app.

Created by Fiona Seaton and Simon Smart with statistical advice from Pete Henrys. For more information on this specific app please contact Fiona Seaton.

Data selection