Ylodes reuteri
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Invertebrate > insect - caddis fly (Trichoptera) > Caddisfly |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Not Relevant) [VU(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Ylodes reuteri |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (McLachlan, 1880) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Wallace, 2016 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | A rare English species of the saltmarshes of East Anglia (with also a specialised and large freshwater population at some Orkney sites). There are no known current larval sites and therefore the micro-habitat is not known nor can individual sites be earmarked for care. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The salt / freshwater balance at its sites will probably need managing, possibly specifically for this species at certain sites. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | No |
| Justification: | Within a brackish suite of habitats this may benefit from diversity of habitat but is more likely to be very specific. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 2. Biological status assessment exists |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Life history factor/s |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Management of coastal water bodies must include a diversity of salinities. This is a species of weakly brackish dykes and these are being impacted by squeeze between rising sea levels and hard coast defences. Allowing marine invasion may prove beneficial as long as upper very weakly saline sites are part of the habitat mix. Detailed knowledge of its larval sites could mean the populations could be expanded considerably and the species status made more secure. However that it has been found recently in such small numbers suggests its population and/or larval sites are small and isolated. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Undertake a desk-top survey of East Anglia to find areas of weakly brackish pools and dykes and at them then undertake light-trapping and sweeping of marginal vegetation, both in July.
Action targets: 2. Biological status assessment exists
Action type: Status survey/review
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites: It is likely that the survey will show that some well-known high quality nature conservation sites will be involved.
Comments: The adults are known to disperse so it will be tricky to relate adult captures with larval sites but the whole coast is too large for a large scale tentative survey and this could narrow the search area considerably.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: At sites where Action 1 found adults undertake a detailed survey of likely larval sites.
Action targets: 2. Biological status assessment exists
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: The results of this survey will be key to conserving this species
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Record the characteristics of larval sites over a year as far as salinity, water flow and extent of drying out is concerned.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: 3-5 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 5 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: The aim is to increase the number of known larval sites by being able to identify other possible sites by physical means as the larva is only easy to record for a short time when it is large, and that is in early summer.
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.