Ancient woodlands are irreplaceable. They're a theme emphasised by The Woodland Trust and they’re one of the reasons I got interested in science. Those gnarled old trees, those mosses, those lichens! And today I see that there’s another reason to love ancient woodlands. A species not seen for decades has been seen again.
After all the weird weather we’ve been having (the Jet Stream’s fault, we hear) and all the talk of climate change (which is for real: I’m a scientist and I trust my colleagues when they reach a consensus) I wonder whether any ecologists have suggested what brought this spider back. I’ll ask around in the Faculty. Though I must admit, it’s such a tiny spider and looks so commonplace, I’m sure that I’m not the only person who could see one and notice nothing.
Hi, thinks for your link! All the best for your blog 🙂
You’re welcome and thank you.
Its good to see recovery of species. It may be down to better forest management, and, as you said it may have been missed before, either because of the scope of previous surveys, or the timing of them.
It does seem that there is a change in the last few years in regard to woodland management, as well as in other areas (I am aware of several projects that have been put forward to restore ancient wetlands), and this will of course take some time to pay off, lets hope these changes continue.
How interesting. What changes have been made in the management of those habitats?
There certainly was scope for improvement. About 20 years ago, soon after my first MSc, I worked for an environmental consultancy firm and it was heartbreaking. The projects that landed on my desk included one to make a windy British seaside town resemble the Riviera, one to reconstruct habitats destroyed by gravel extraction, and worst of all, one to reconstruct upland peat bog after 15 years of open-cast mining. Then there were the road-building projects in which it was my role to say that Route A was better than Route B because Route A would carve through only a dozen ancient woodlands. This was a decent, ethical company who employed me, but for me it was like being doused in icy water. I left.
There have been several changes over the past few decades, starting out with the plan to increase the amount of forest in the country (something several northern countries have done), and to attempt to raise the amount of forest back up to previous levels.
The link here is for a 2000 document from the forestry commission about their changing priorities http://maxa.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/unff-planted-forestry-meeting/conference-papers/changing-needs-changing-forests.pdf
Secondly, there has been an increasing focus on renewing forests, hedgerows and meadowlands with a view to improving and restoring biodiversity. There is a convention on biodiversity that was part of the Rio intergovernmental summit in the 90s, and there are now biodiversity action lists, the UK one is found here
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-1817
Finally, there is Natura 2000 from the EU, which has had the effect of more studies being done to find out what species are in an area, sort of like mapping the biodiversity of the EU, and taking steps to protect certain areas, or restore others.
Interactive map here: http://natura2000.eea.europa.eu/#
Examples of Sites here: (Scroll down for UK ones) http://www.natura.org/sites.html
General Info here: http://www.natura.org/about.html
There is also more of an understanding that woodlands go beyond economic value (luckily!) Links to info about rewilding:
http://www.britishwildlife.com/classic_articles/British%20Wildlife%20Special%20supplement.pdf
Link to plant ecology professor type guy from Oxford, with recent research he has been involved in http://dps.plants.ox.ac.uk/plants/staff/KeithKirby.aspx
Thank you for these links!