AlpsLife - a questionnaire to summarize monitoring efforts for pollinating insects across the European Alps

The Alps are an important biodiversity hotspot in south-central Europe spanning 1,200 km across eight countries – including France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany and Slovenia. In the face of a global biodiversity crisis, there is an urgent need to establish a robust, standardized, and collaborative approach to monitor biodiversity. Pollinating insects, along with other taxa subjected to monitoring activities, became an integral part of the conservation goals established in COP 15’ 30x30. More specifically, the Nature Restoration Regulation, the EU Pollinators Initiative, and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2188 set out objectives and science-based methodology for monitoring and halting the decline of wild pollinators. Although various monitoring approaches exist, and harmonization efforts have been made, each project or study typically tailors its methods to specific contexts and objectives. Consequently, even when data are available, defining pollinators’ population trends and distributions across the European Alps remains challenging, hindering a comprehensive understanding of their status throughout the Alpine space. Here, we have built a targeted questionnaire aiming at identifying i) which pollinating insect groups are monitored, ii) which monitoring schemes are currently implemented for each group and iii) which areas of the European Alps have no active pollinator monitoring program. The questionnaire consists of five main sections, titled as follows: 1) Legal framework for monitoring, 2) Pollinating insect groups monitored and the field monitoring methods currently in use (with a particular focus on butterflies, moths, bees and hoverflies), 3) Methods for identifying specimens, 4) Data availability and storage, and 5) Financial and administrative requirements. The questionnaire was created using the platform SurveyMonkey and translated into four languages: English, French, German and Italian. Survey results will summarize common pollinator monitoring schemes and offer updated guidance for aligning public and private practices with the EU Pollinator Monitoring Scheme (EUPoMS) guidelines, with a focus on alpine environment. Results will also reveal whether enough data exists to propose a representative indicator for pollinators across the European Alps.