WATERVILLE — Volunteers are being sought to participate in a continuing statewide butterfly survey that has added five new species to Maine’s list.

Additionally, Phillip deMaynadier of China believes he found a breeding population last year in northern Maine of a new U.S. national species, the Short-tailed Swallowtail.

DeMaynadier is the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Maine Butterfly Survey coordinator.

On a Saturday to be determined next month, he and survey volunteer coordinator Herb Wilson of Colby College will convene a six-hour training workshop at the Waterville college.

Participants will learn about butterfly biology, identification and details on MBS survey protocols. Lunch will be provided and participants will be given a butterfly net, collecting equipment and training manual.

Launched in 2007, the Maine Butterfly Survey is a statewide, volunteer survey effort designed to fill information gaps on butterfly distribution, flight seasons and habitat relationships for one of Maine’s most popular insects, deMaynadier said Wednesday afternoon in Bangor.

“People are used to seeing a few butterfly species in their gardens or their backyard and may not have seen them yet,” he said.

“But they’re used to seeing a few species that are characteristic of their backyard and assume that butterflies are doing well and their populations are healthy.

“But those few common garden butterflies are just the tip of the iceberg of the 120 species that are native to Maine, which occur in very specialized habitats that nobody’s ever going to see unless they go to that unique and very remote habitat,” deMaynadier said.

That’s why volunteer surveyors, primarily amateurs, who are being recruited and trained as citizen scientists are needed.

Such volunteers have added five new resident breeding butterfly species to Maine’s list, he said.

“These are resident breeding species that we hadn’t known existed in Maine before, and it’s a relatively well-studied group compared to other insects, although clearly not studied enough,” deMaynadier said.

“And we have added dozens of county records — and some of the counties in Maine are of the size of some southern New England states — so that was a big change in distribution,” he said.

Because the majority of Maine’s butterfly species live in remote habitat, deMaynadier said they’ve learned through surveys that 20 percent of the state’s butterfly population is listed as locally extinct, or state-listed as endangered, threatened or special concern.

“That’s one of the big motivations for doing this survey, not just to enjoy the beauty of butterflies,” he said. “But also to meet our mandate to protect and enhance all of the wildlife of Maine and to make sure we prioritize our efforts on those species that are of the greatest conservation need, of which there are many in the butterfly group.”

Of Maine’s 120 resident species, most survive the winter either in a freeze-resistant egg or as a caterpillar in the duff layer of the ground, or as a pupa, the hard-shelled stage between the larvae and adult, deMaynadier said.

A few species migrate in and out, like Monarchs, Red Admirals, Clouded Sulphurs, American Snouts, Painted American Ladies and Painted Ladies.

Maine’s Monarch population winters in one mountain range west of Mexico City, along with all of the other Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains, but the other five species are short-range migrants.

Aside from serving as harbingers of spring, butterflies also play important ecological roles as pollinators of wildflowers and prey to larger species, from dragonflies to birds, deMaynadier said.

They’re also “valuable indicators of ecosystem stress due to habitat loss, pollution and climate change,” he said.

When completed, the Maine butterfly atlas will serve as a baseline data set that future scientists can reference to determine if climate change alters populations.

“By sort of marshaling the efforts of trained citizens, they help us extend our efforts a lot further than we could do alone,” deMaynadier said.

[email protected]

To become involved in the 2012 Maine Butterfly Survey project or to learn more about Maine’s butterflies, contact Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife coordinator Phillip deMaynadier at [email protected] or the MBS volunteer coordinator Herb Wilson at [email protected], or visit the MBS website at mbs.umf.maine.edu to check details on progress to date.