How does your garden grow? Participatory polycultures research in the UK

Plants growing in communities (polycultures) of certain mixtures have been shown to yield more biomass than do monocultures of their constituent species, as well as delivering enhanced ecosystem services, better pest regulation, and greater overall economic productivity (e.g. Malézieux et al., 2009). Despite this, there has been surprisingly little commercial uptake of such multispecies systems. We suggest that the scale of use of these systems is fundamental to their successful implementation. Concurrently with the growing debates over land use in large-scale agriculture and competition with other objectives such as conservation and fibre production, there has been a widespread increase in “grow your own” in the UK. There remains, however, a paucity of academic research on the productivity of these household-level systems. This study represents the first investigation of yield from household systems since 1948. We used the principle of higher yield being associated with greater diversity to investigate productivity (per land area, per labour time input, & continuity of production) of food plants in low- (3 species) and high- (12 species) diversity polycultures in family food systems. Vegetable species from a range of plant families were chosen based on spatial occupancy niches & functional attributes, and grown in a participatory trial of 50 households from across the UK. Participants recorded data on yield, time spent on the plots, and also completed pre-and post-study questionnaires. Results show no overall difference in total yield, but significant differences in individual species’ yields which suggests that compensatory mechanisms and competitive ability are important considerations. Yields differed across the country, and increased with increasing input time. People found the less diverse system easier to manage and more “worthwhile”. Interestingly, these systems yield on average the equivalent of 35 tonnes per hectare, with some approaching over 100 tonnes per hectare. These diverse small scale systems have an excellent potential for improving food yields, as well as the potential to meet other targets in low-carbon transition, enhanced biodiversity and improved health and well-being. This may be a solution-driven win-win in the land-sharing/land-sparing debate that simultaneously engages the public with scientific research and inspires a conservation ethos

Spatial patterns in alpine flora communities in response to variation in glacial melt-water flow

Alpine glacial retreat alters melt-water flow and impacts streamside flora. We assess spatial patterns in plant communities’ composition and diversity across a glacial braidplain subject to extremes of inundation, desiccation, and sediment deposition. Patterns are related to channel stability and plant community age. Implications for this fragile ecosystem are considered

Using the Ecosystem Services assessment tool TESSA to balance the multiple landscape demands of increasing woodlands in a UK national park

Upland regions in the UK are increasingly under consideration as potential areas for the creation of woodlands. This is driven by a combination of factors, including the aims of UK forestry policy to increase woodland cover, changes in current upland land-use and management, agri-environment schemes in national and international policy and an increasing public awareness of the ecosystem service benefits landscapes can deliver for society. Creating new woodlands in upland areas is challenging, partly due to concerns of potential impacts from a change in land use and stakeholder interests. This study considers a 250 km2 Cumbrian (England) upland landscape dominated by sheep grazing and, using an established ecosystem service assessment tool (TESSA), estimates the provision of ecosystem services under plausible alternative woodland creation scenarios. The assessment focuses on key ecosystem goods and services, which are identified by stakeholders to be of high importance to the study area, and the potential changes to those under the scenarios. The results indicate that, under lower woodland percentage scenarios (10 %), minor benefits are expected. However, a more complex outcome would be expected from the higher percentage woodland scenarios (75 %) with the woodland cover of 50 % identified as providing the highest overall benefit to society

Edible Plant Database

The Edible Plant Database (EPD) is an outcome of the GROW Observatory, a European Citizen Science project on growing food, soil moisture sensing and land monitoring. This dataset was disseminated via a web service hosted by IIASA (Austria) that provides information about suitable plants for locations within Europe, based on climate. The web service was used in the GROW app, this dataset is the base information used for that service. Key growing data, for example, planting and harvesting calendars, suitability of location for growing are either typically dispersed across a plethora of sources or generic and only applicable at large scales. The latter is a significant constraint to the new grower who may be unaware of the impact of local micro-climate on growing. The EPD provides collates key data for one resource, the GROW app, that enables users across Europe to choose what to plant in their location at the time of query. It is a database populated with 15 growing parameters with a supporting database on germination of 146 edible plant species included in EPD. Planting calendars and germination data to all 12 European climate zones are also included with high resolution images purchased under licence. The EPD brings together planting, harvesting and growing requirements for a suite of crops that can be grown in Europe and uses these data to provide locally relevant advice for growers. The Edible Plant Database provides data based on geographical location and growing season to answer questions such as “What can I plant now” and “what can I plant that will yield a crop on some future date”. Further information on GROW Observatory can be found at www.growobservatory.org This data is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 690199 Keywords: Growing calendars, edible plants, local differences, climate zone, planting, harvestin

Impacts of woodland planting on nature-based recreational tourism in upland England: a case study

Upland landscapes provide important ecosystem services (ES) to society. One cultural ES– nature-based recreational tourism (NBR) – is a growing industry in upland regions that provides an important revenue to areas where other industries are often in decline. NBR tourism is a service that relies partly on the aesthetic appearance of the landscape and changes in land management, such as increasing woodland cover, changes the appearance of the landscape and may therefore have a positive or negative impact on the economic value generated by NBR tourism. We tested this query, by carrying out a survey of NBR tourists, using photo visualisation of different woodland scenarios, in a pastoral upland landscape in a UK National Park. This was conducted to estimate the economic value of NBR tourism under different woodland scenarios and participant’s preferences. The findings presented in this paper suggest that NBR tourism generates a substantial income to the area and that the economic value would not decrease, if woodland cover were to increase up to 75%. The findings also make an important observation on how there is a difference between peoples’ preference for woodland levels and the probability of return visits

Fuzzy logic modelling of snow leopard populations in response to threats from climate change

The snow leopard population in Kazakhstan represents a small but important component of the species range, making up around 2.7% of the global range, of which 18,673 km2 lies within protected areas. The most recent population estimate, by Jackson et al. (2008), suggests that there are around 180-200 individuals. Prior to this study there were no reliable estimates of snow leopard numbers in Almaty State Nature Reserve, one of the only two stable populations of snow leopards in Kazakhstan. In total 40 camera traps were deployed for a total of 5152 traps nights and yielded 50 independent capture events of snow leopards (with between 1 and 10 images per event), 275 capture events of primary prey and 68 capture events of secondary prey. The study capture rate of 0.97 independent capture events per 100 trap nights is at the higher end of the range experienced by other studies (see McCarthy et al., 2008) and mark-recapture modelling estimated 11-18 individual snow leopards in the study area which suggests density between 4.4 and 7.2 individuals per 100km2. Our population estimate for the whole reserve is 39.6 individuals, with a standard error of 5.44536 individuals and a 95% confidence interval of 39 to 64. Analysis of movement patterns suggests that individuals frequently crossed valley bottoms and used densely forested habitat in winter, which may indicated prey switching from ibex to forest ungulates. The University of Cumbria has developed a fuzzy logic model which aggregates a wide range of socio-economic and ecological data and provides a tool that can be used to inform the sustainable natural resource and landscape management decision-making process. Our model predicts the consistent negative impact of climate change (warming) at elevations below the tree line; this is particularly significant as the potential positive impacts for snow leopards at high elevation are slower to kick in thereby increasing the habitat squeeze associated with climate change in mountain habitats