Restoration of blanket bog vegetation for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and water regulation
The Defra funded peatland project BD5104 investigates different management possibilities of heather dominated blanket bog vegetation and their impact on plant biodiversity, carbon sequestration and water regulation. The project will initially run from 2011 to 2016.
The overarching aim of this study is to:
Acquire experimental data to underpin the development and refinement of possible management techniques, for example, applicable through Environmental Stewardship schemes, to address the dominance of heather (Calluna vulgaris) and facilitate the support of ‘active’ blanket bog vegetation (with peat-forming species, particularly Sphagnum spp.).
This requires screening for the most suitable management techniques and then including those as part of a long-term manipulative experiment to provide scientifically sound and meaningful data upon which to base policy advice and subsequently inform management decisions, considering both, environmental and socio-economic implications.
In the UK, many blanket bogs having been drained for grazing, often combined with regular burning, which frequently leads to increased dominance of heather (Calluna vulgaris). However, heather dominance tends to dry the peat further as well as potentially causing underground erosion (‘peat pipes’) and suppressing ‘active’ peat forming plants such as Sphagnum spp. mosses. Higher water tables also tend to benefit bird populations feeding on soil animals (e.g. craneflies) that rely on wet peatlands. However, certain heather management strategies currently in use (e.g. burning) may have detrimental effects on, for example, peat C stocks, air quality or water quality and there is interest in finding alternatives.
Importantly, the consequences of changes in management practice on biodiversity, carbon dynamics and water quality are likely to be slow to emerge so that long-term monitoring is needed. A combination of field and modelling work will identify those management or restoration options of greatest cost-benefit to restoring ‘active’ peatland and the associated ecosystem services.
This project will perform a literature review, a comprehensive set of long-term field experiments and through a cost-benefit analysis will investigate how different management measures affect vegetation composition and associated ecosystem services. The rigorously designed field experiments will compare ‘control’ to 'treatment' areas, where large-scale mowing and other smaller nested treatments will replace the usual burn regime at three sites, two in Yorkshire in collaboration with the Yorkshire Peat Partnership (YPP), Nidderdale and Mossdale, and another at the Forest of Bowland (United Utilities).
Further information
Collaborating organisations: Yorkshire Peat Partnership, The Univerisity of York Biology Department and Department of Environment and Geography Birkbeck College London
External project website: http://peatland-es-uk.york.ac.uk/
SEI York Contact(s)