Every summer, for more than thirty years, hundreds of volunteers have spread out across America to count butterflies as part of the North American Butterfly Association's (NABA) 4th of July and other summer season butterfly counts. Like bees, some butterflies pollinate flowering plants as they forage for nectar among the flowers.

In addition to getting folks outside and interacting with these beautiful nectivores, NABA's national community science based monitoring event generates extensive data about butterfly species that can be used to measure the fluctuations in butterfly populations, especially in relation to the affects of climate change and phenological events.

Until recently, the task of collecting, collating, and analyzing the data from these counts was done entirely by hand and on paper. But with co-funding provided in 2007 by the USGS National Biological Information Infrastructure, NABA and other partners were able to develop a new Web-based system for automated data entry (login account required) that streamlined this process. The new system was used by volunteers to enter data for more than 300 counts completed during the 2008 monitoring period.

For more information about the NBII's contribution to this project, contact Andrea Ostroff at aostroff@usgs.gov or (703) 648-4070.

For more information about the North American Butterfly Association's activities, visit their official Web site online at http://www.naba.org/.