The potential of the selective graminicides cycloxydim and propyzamide as habitat improvement tools for the pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly

The pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne) is a resident UK butterfly which is in decline, partly because grasses can outcompete its preferred food plant, common dog-violet (Viola riviniana). We therefore investigated whether using graminicides could help to enhance the habitat quality of a violet-rich butterfly ride. Applications of 1.5 kg a.i. ha-1 propyzamide or 0.45 kg a.i. ha-1 cycloxydim both reduced grass cover and were associated with an increase in violet plants. Our work suggests that enhancing pearl-bordered fritillary habitat may not always be possible through herbicide use alone, but cycloxydim may have a useful role in helping to reduce competition from grasses.

Social Dimensions of Natural Colonisation

This research investigates why land managers may or may not adopt natural colonisation for tree expansion. It explores their attitudes, barriers, and support needs while evaluating the effectiveness of incentive schemes to improve engagement and policy support.

New evidence to inform woodland creation for climate change mitigation

Robert Matthews

Adapting forest and woodland management to the changing climate

Our climate is changing rapidly, with milder, wetter winters, warmer summers, longer growing seasons and more frequent extreme conditions, including drought periods and heavy rainfall events. The projected rate of climate change is unprecedented and therefore action is essential now to improve the resilience of forests and woodlands, and to protect the benefits that they […]

Threshold Response to Extreme Drought Shifts Inter-Tree Growth Dominance in Pinus sylvestris

Many studies quantify short-term drought impact on tree growth relative to pre-drought growth averages. However, fewer studies examine the extent to which droughts of differing severity differentially impact tree growth or shape stand dynamics. Focusing on three droughts in high and low density stands of Pinus sylvestris in Scotland, we calculated pre-drought growth averages using […]

Life after recovery: Increased resolution of forest resilience assessment sheds new light on post-drought compensatory growth and recovery dynamics

Understanding the impacts of extreme drought on forest productivity requires a comprehensive assessment of tree and forest resilience. However, current approaches to quantifying resilience limit our understanding of forest response dynamics, recovery trajectories and drought legacies by constraining the temporal scale and resolution of assessment. We compared individual tree growth histories with growth forecasted using […]

Comparison of the carbon, water, and energy balances of mature stand and clear-fell stages in a British Sitka spruce forest and the impact of the 2018 drought

Sitka spruce is the major conifer species in British upland forests and is predominantly managed as even-aged, single-species plantations with rotation lengths of less than 50 years using a “patch clear-felling” system. Evidence on the impact of clear-felling on the carbon, water and energy balances of plantation forestry is sparse and extreme weather events, such […]

The devil is in the detail: Metabarcoding of arthropods provides a sensitive measure of biodiversity response to forest stand composition compared with surrogate measures of biodiversity

We investigated whether biodiversity information obtained from DNA metabarcoding of mass-trapped arthropods and from a range of taxa-based surrogate measures of biodiversity (e.g. carabid beetles, vascular plants) provide: 1) similar estimates of alpha and beta diversity and 2) provide similar forest management related conclusions. We also explored how well habitat-based surrogate measures of biodiversity (e.g. stand structure, volume of deadwood) predict observed biodiversity patterns.

Breeding ash trees for tolerance to ash dieback

Richard Whittet

Outdoor Workshop 07.13

* These publications are produced by Technical Development. Some (mainly older) publications are not available online. If you do not find what you are looking for, please contact jens.haufe@forestresearch.gov.uk or bill.jones@forestresearch.gov.uk or phone 0300 067 5919.

Safe fitting of bandtracks to harvesting machinery

Article published in Forest Machine Journal – March 2003 and Forestry & British Timber – April 2003

Logpole 2000, evaluation of purpose built harvester and clambunk extraction system

Summary (2000)