For botanists, establishing nativeness of plant species is a constant source of headaches, made more perplexing because plants have been moved around by humans, wilfully or accidentally, for millennia. To try to make sense of the different histories of plants, non-natives are further sub-divided into archaeophytes, which have been present in the wild since before 1500 (often considered ‘honorary natives’ as they have been here so long) and neophytes, which have been around only since 1500 or later.
Adrian Spalding delves into questions of nativeness surrounding insects in the UK. The article works to understand definitions of nativeness, apply the botanical approach to lepidoptera and ultimately asks whether establishing the native (or not) status of species is important.