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Interdisciplinary fieldwork aims to establish a robust methodology to assess the efficacy of ‘natural colonisation’ as an approach to establish new woodland and its impacts on biodiversity and above and below ground carbon.
Key questions being evidenced are:
Methodology
Areas of natural colonisation established within agriculturally dominated landscapes and initiated with the previous 10-20 years were selected. Each of the sites contained three distinct areas of woodland:
At least three rectangular transects were used to capture spatial variation across the sites. All sampling took place within these transects: the whole transect was divided into sub-transects for terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetry flights (results to be presented in the next phase of the project) and plots positioned along the transect were used to manually sample tree size and species, as well as other vegetation cover. Soil samples were taken across the same transects.
Preliminary findings year 1 (2021/22)
Trees appear to be colonising the studied sites in three main ways, related to tree dispersal mechanisms, potentially ground preparation and browsing pressure:
However, this first year pilot study has demonstrated the high degree of variability within and between the sites which need to be investigated further to be able to provide generalisable evidence.
Work in year 2 (2022/23) will expand the sample of sites to include a wider range of ages and starting land use.
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