Yellow Vetchling (Lathyrus aphaca)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| 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: | Lathyrus aphaca |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | L. |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | in Stroh et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Ongoing strong decline shown by latest atlas data. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | The species has an association with ruderal and disturbed habitats, many in urban locations, and therefore is likely to require species-focussed work to avoid site losses. |
| 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: | This species would not benefit from untargeted management |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | It is considered that much of the historic range represents casual introductions that failed to establish long-term populations. It is a species appears able to colonise suitable habitats as they occur (e.g. disturbed or recently created road-verges), whether naturally or by accidental introduction. It might also be expected to benefit from a hotter climate. Therefore action should focus on maintaining substantial populations in landscapes where it is generally most abundant, and those places where it may be native. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Establish a programme of monad-level monitoring in 'core' areas where there have been concentrations of records across a number of contiguous hectads for a period of decades. In localities where the species has been recorded from a large number of monads (e.g. North-west Kent), monitor a sample of monads.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: 1 year
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 100 sites
High priority sites: Coastal localities in Dorset, sites in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, London and Thames Estuary, sites in Somerset, Sussex coast.
Comments: Monitoring to be repeated every 2 to 4 years. Priority sites are those where the species may be native, and those with concentrations of recent records.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Where monitoring under action 1 shows evidence of decline in abundance or range, establish a programme of targeted ground disturbance with the aim of re-establishing declining or lost populations, or establishing new populations within or close to the established local range.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: 2 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 10 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: Duration etc. is based on the following: action at any given location would take place in one year and require monitoring the following year to assess success. Number of sites (and therefore cost) is dependent on results of monitoring carried out under action 1. Also, it will not become clear whether action 2 will be necessary until monitoring under action 1 has been carried out for several iterations.
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.