An adaptable integrated modelling platform to support rapidly evolving agricultural and environmental policy

The utility of integrated models for informing policy has been criticised due to limited stakeholder engagement, model opaqueness, inadequate transparency in assumptions, lack of model flexibility and lack of communication of uncertainty that, together, lead to a lack of trust in model outputs. We address these criticisms by presenting the ERAMMP Integrated Modelling Platform (IMP), developed to support the design of new “business-critical” policies focused on agriculture, land-use and natural resource management. We demonstrate how the long-term (>5 years), iterative, two-way and continuously evolving participatory process led to the co-creation of the IMP with government, building trust and understanding in a complex integrated model. This is supported by a customisable modelling framework that is sufficiently flexible to adapt to changing policy needs in near real-time. We discuss how these attributes have facilitated cultural change within the Welsh Government where the IMP is being actively used to explore, test and iterate policy ideas prior to final policy design and implementation

Model‐based assessment of the impact of agri‐environment scheme options and short‐term climate change on plant biodiversity in temperate grasslands

1. Agri-environment schemes (AES) incentivise land-management practices aimed at mitigating environmental impacts. However, their effectiveness depends on the duration and type of management. We modelled the potential for grassland AES options in Wales (UK) to achieve positive changes in plant diversity via change in soil conditions. 2. We modelled the response of plants and soils to the predicted effects of AES options over a 13-year time interval. We applied scenarios of change in soil conditions in three managed grassland types, using high-resolution baseline soil and vegetation data collected in grasslands across Wales, UK. We also applied scenarios of climate change to determine the extent to which this might modify the impact of AES intervention on plant species compositional turnover. 3. Empirical models of soil response to extensification were constructed from published experimental data and used to drive change in soil inputs to a small ensemble of ecological niche models for British plants. These models were applied to the local pool of species in each baseline (2 × 2 m) quadrat plus a wider 10 × 10 km pool from which we draw species absent at baseline but predicted to find conditions suitable as a result of AES intervention and climate change, thus estimating dark diversity at each location. Outputs were summarised by grouping species by the ecosystem functions and services they support and by matching projected species composition to the UK National Vegetation Classification. 4. Scenario modelling indicated that at least 10 years of management under grassland AES options were needed to achieve conditions suitable for desirable plant assemblages more typical of lower fertility habitats. 5. Synthesis and applications: We predict that management effects will have a more marked effect on vegetation and soil than predicted climate variation up to 2029. Realising modelled changes in habitat suitability as species compositional turnover and community assembly is likely to require additional measures to assist plant dispersal and establishment

Genetic diversity in British populations of Taxus baccata L.: is the seedbank collection representative of the genetic variation in the wild?

Seed banking is an invaluable tool in plant conservation, both as an archive and a source of genetic variation. Despite the increasing focus on the validation of sampling strategies, few studies have empirically related diversity in seed bank collections with variation in wild-provenance populations. By using a set of nuclear microsatellites, we investigated genetic diversity in British populations of Taxus baccata (European yew tree). We used our findings as a baseline for the quantification of genetic diversity captured in the germplasm collections maintained by the Millennium Seed Bank (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), in terms of allelic richness and allelic capture. We observed that genetic differentiation in wild populations of yew is compatible with highly effective gene flow, with no geographic patterns. Heterozygosity is lower than expected for a dioecious obligate outbreeder. Seed collections are representative of wild populations in terms of allelic capture, including rare and locally common variants, indicating that the current sampling protocol implemented by the UK National Tree Seed Project is appropriate. Specific sampling strategies might be improved by including more populations at the edge of the range and in remote localities, even at the expense of contiguous populations. Our methods may be applied to evaluate allelic capture in other germplasm collections for which a baseline exists, i.e. in which genetic diversity in the wild-provenance populations is known. Our recommendations related to sampling strategies can be extended to other tree species with continuous distributions and effective gene flow

Harmonisation and integrated modelling of UK long-term vegetation data: a case study focussed on heath & bog habitats

Draft report to UKCEH-Defra Memorandum of Agreement project 07111 Task 0