VDI 4330 Blatt 13:2010-01

This VDI guideline should be used to monitor butterfly and moth fauna when monitoring the environmental effects of genetically modified organisms in accordance with the specifications of the European Directive 2001/18/EC and Council Decision 2002/811/EC. The main objective is to identify potentially significant changes in the inventory or abundance of butterfly and moth communities over an extended period of time. This VDI guideline defines methodological standards for monitoring the species inventory and the individual abundances of butterfly and moth imagoes and larvae. The need to monitor butterfly and moth fauna will depend on the GMO being monitored. The standardisation of monitoring methods ensures a high level of reproducibility and comparability of the recorded data. The methods must be practical and efficient, require a justifiable level of effort and costs, and generate data suitable for statistical analysis. If possible, the chosen approach to sampling and site selection should enable conclusions to be drawn about the potential cause-effect relationship of a GMO effect, or failing that, should enable the deduction of specific hypotheses about the effects of GMOs on the lepidopteran fauna, which can then be tested subsequently. The sampling design described here can also be transferred to other groups of organisms.