So which is better - diversity of slugs and snails and other creepy crawlies or diversity of raptors?
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Nature and sustainability...
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Posted 1 year ago #
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Diversity of slugs and snails may lead to a diversity of raptors. Artificial reintroduction of raptors without the food web to support them just means we have to feed them each day e.g. the Red Kite centre at NyA - little more than an open zoo
Posted 1 year ago # -
There is an increasing trend in Scotland for the land to be managed to increase diversity not to increase game species - and its working and altering the landscape and increasing the numbers of rare species both plant and animal
I came across exactly this near where I was staying during my last trip to Scotland.
A large former National Nature Reserve was downgraded and stripped of its status with only a very small area managed by Scottish National Heritage remaining as a National Nature Reserve.
The problem was the deer stalking estates who are keeping hugely inflated numbers of deer on the land. These deer have munched up all the rare arctic/alpine plants on the reserve (some of which only grew on this particular site in the UK). SNH wanted the estate to shoot more deer but the estates weren't interested as they like to keep numbers high so it is easy for their clients to find and shoot deer when out stalking.
Some of it may be a "rose-tinted view of the past" but many of these ecosystems and habitiats provide vital ecological services e.g. pollenating crops, locking in CO2, providing clean air and water. None of these services are factored in to the economics which results in these areas being undervalued and development / changes in land-use are permitted without evaluating the true costs.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Zokes, Richard Bardgett used to have a nice Klein you working with him?
Zokes - I accept it is diverse - but in an area of many square miles would diversity of species not be improved by providing some me variation in the right parts of the land?
dpends on the variation, modern agricultural use would totally screw it for biodiversity. And thanks for telling me I was just falling for gamekeeper propaganda, because actually its my considered opinion based on a PhD and postdoc research on agricultural biodiversity.
Posted 1 year ago # -
A_A - I was his post doc for 6 months at Lancaster, but he was PI on the same project i worked on at bangor for 18 months prior.
He had umpteen bikes, but I never really paid that much attention to them really. If I ever actually had chance for a meeting he was so busy all I had time to talk about was shop. Relations were sadly a little strained too at the time as on my first day at Lancaster I told him I had the job I'm now doing here in Australia (permanent research scientist post at CSIRO). Pity, I would have quite liked to work a lot more closely with him.
Still, I've had lots of feedback on the two MS drafts he's seen so far, so hopefully no lasting damage...
Did you work for him at Lancaster, or just collaborating with him?
Posted 1 year ago # -
AA - so you are saying allowing a bit of variation in the management of the land would decrease diversity?
Posted 1 year ago # -
No-one in the political elite gives a damn anymore.
There's lots of quite frightening things happening to the environment, but nothing much will happen while our politicians are running around like headless chickens worrying about economic downfall, the ****ing war on terror and where the next vote is going to come from.
In years to come our children will look back on this time and wonder what on earth we thought we were doing allowing rainforests to be cleared, species to be wiped out, coral reefs to be obliterated, our oceans used as a dumping ground, and the planet to be generally trashed.
Anyway, screw Nature. What's she ever done for me?
Posted 1 year ago # -
No-one in the political elite gives a damn anymore.
Certainly not in our country - from what I hear, the only area almost certain to suffer 40% cuts is scientific research and universities. Little wonder so many researchers are going abroad. And I'm not just talking about relatively junior researchers like myself - two high profile, world leading profs that I know of in my field have headed over here to Oz in the past two years. Many more have asked me what it's like.
I'm not quite sure how the UK is supposed to fix itself and innovate, when all the researchers are being forced out. I guess the UK will go with banking to drive the economy with its proven track record then
Posted 1 year ago # -
I blame Descartes and Bacon.
Posted 1 year ago # -
AA - so you are saying allowing a bit of variation in the management of the land would decrease diversity
TJ - cant you see, that the existence of your monoculture grouse moor IS variation.
Theres plenty of areas of farmland in the country, and a fair number of areas of unimproved grassland and scrub.
If you get rid of the areas of uninterrupted heather moorland by turning it into something else then you're decreasing the variety of habitats in the region/country/world, you're just replacing one monoculture with another wider monoculture that you think is "better" - 75% of the worlds heather moorland is found in Britain - by losing that you make the world less diverse!
Heather moorland has an identifiable characteristic variety of species - these species are not found anywhere else, cant you see that breaking that up reduces the diversity of species globally - this is my point about scale - while you're saying its not diverse, you're looking as the small scale, having roaming expanses of heather moorland makes the world more diverse, as they don't exist anywhere else
Now then - what is the critical sustainable level for the survival of these species? if you reduce and break up the heather moorland, at what point do the communities and species that survive there become unviable/unsustainable? if you reduce the size of a moor, will it continue to hold a viable community of grouse/plover/hen harrier?
Grouse and plover do not survive on southern Heathland, despite the fact that they are both heather dominated, nor to they survive in caledonian pine forests - breaking up the "heather monoculture" could very easily endanger these species, is that an increase in diversity or a reduction? you have not quantified the scale, nor have you quantified the risk inherent in changing the status quo. Nor have you quantified the increased risk of wildfire found in longer heather growths, even higher in heather and scrub (and, indeed the severity of the burn and recovery time in heather and scrub!)
Finally TJ - You still have not tackled the red squirrel and Broadleaves dilemma - if in an attempt to increase "diversity" in a location you introduce a common species that threatens the survival of an endangered species, then your original effort is counter productive.
True dilemma by the way, in the early nineties at Kielder we were being sent out to plant thousands of Oak trees in the watercourses (as studies showed they support the highest diversity of species, unlike the monoculture conifer planations)... a few years later they were cutting them all down again! - the law of unintended consequences strikes again
This isn't gamekeeper propaganda - red grouse and golden plover are (internationally) endangered species - I suggest you go and read
"The effect of management for red grouse shooting on the population density of breeding birds on heather-dominated moorland - A. P. THARME et al"
Posted 1 year ago # -
Zulu - its you that don't get it. Still its nothing new
The simple point I was making as proved by the Langholm study is that if you manage moorland with the intent of increasing biodiversity you can and this produces greater biodiversity than managing it soley for shooting
Posted 1 year ago # -
if you manage moorland with the intent of increasing biodiversity you can and this produces greater biodiversity than managing it soley for shooting
But, and its a big, huge capital BUT - in the process of doing so you decrease its value for internationally endangered characteristic moorland non game species
golden plover, curlew, and lapwing populations are lower on moors managed in the way you propose - all of these species have recently declined in geographic range in Britain!
This is a prime example of the Red Squirrel dilemma and you still have not tackled it!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Did you work for him at Lancaster, or just collaborating with him?
The lady who owned the hay meadows i did my PhD on was his PhD supervisor or something, then a few years later we collaborated on some work, for a bit just before I jacked it in and became a teacher.
The simple point I was making as proved by the Langholm study is that if you manage moorland with the intent of increasing biodiversity you can and this produces greater biodiversity than managing it soley for shooting
which is very true, but managing it for just grouse is much much and many orders of magnitude better than modern agricultural use.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Curlew and Lapwing are inbye grassland breeders rather than heather moor though. Plover granted are a species that benefits from a managed heater moorland. But, and it's a big but, where does that leave the Hen Harrier you mentioned originally? How is that doing on moorland managed for shooting?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Curlew and Lapwing are inbye grassland breeders
suitable inbye grassland for lapwing and curlew are about as rare as hens teeth these days, they do much better in rough grazing.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hen Harrers on moorland managed for shooting, the bad news - http://bit.ly/a5f8XO
Posted 1 year ago #
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