Where have all the flowers gone? A perspective on flowering plants - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Where have all the flowers gone? A perspective on flowering plants in Scottish semi-natural woods Findings from Kate Holl’s Churchill Fellowship Photo: Neil Mackenzie

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Where did it all begin........? Peter Wormall’s exclosure on the Isle of Mull

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage What do woods with no herbivores look like? They have palatable species

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage What do woods with no herbivores look like? They have climbing and trailing plants

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage What do woods with no herbivores look like? They have “filling”!

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Woods with no herbivores have “filling”! Cartoon: Ben Averis

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Woods without “filling”: The impacts of herbivores on woodlands are far greater than we had realised….

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage The big idea Through a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship I was able to visit places and countries where there are fewer herbivores to see how they might be different…

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Not a scientific study – just observation… Over 6 weeks, I travelled to 4 countries, visited over 40 woods and interviewed 25 people. I saw more woodland flowers than I have seen in nearly 30 years as SNH’s woodland adviser Photo: Helen Armstrong

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage The French Pyrenees

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage The French Pyrenees Silver fir and beech mixed Ash woodland near Aucun, Flower-ful glade in pine woodland in central Central Pyrenees woodland Pyrenees

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Isle of Wight woods have been free from herbivore impacts for 150 years

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Isle of Wight woods – full of understorey Abundant ivy fills the Typical Isle of Wight wood Honeysuckle climbing and understorey flowering profusely

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage South-west Norway

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage A Norwegian alder woodland free of herbivore impacts for 80 years

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Honeysuckle writhes around the understorey, bursting into flower when it emerges from the canopy

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Iceland

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Icelandic birch woods – full of flowers The field layer in the woods was literally a carpet of flowers

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Moorland species such as golden plover and stone bramble amidst regenerating birch woodland… Photo: Lorna Holl

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Conclusions: Conclusions: • Scotland’s woods should have more flowers • Whole habitats comprising palatable species are missing from the landscape, or have retreated to inaccessible places • Ecological productivity is low and this has implications for human productivity as well as biodiversity • Habitat resilience is diminished because woodland plants rarely get to flower and set seed

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage We need to tell a new story about Scotland’s Primary recommendation is for a significant and urgent woods and their missing flowers reduction in large herbivore numbers across Scotland We need to restore the filling to at least some of our woods And in the words of the (slightly perverted) great song: O Flower(s) of Scotland, When will we see Your like again (?)

Dualchas Nàdair na h-Alba Scottish Natural Heritage Thank you!