Maitland, P.S.

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   Chapter (non‐refereed)   Maitland, P.S.. 1975 Loch Leven Symposium. In: Annual Report of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology 1974. NERC/ITE, 62  Copyright © 1975 NERC  This version available at http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/10397/    NERC has developed NORA to enable users to access research outputs wholly or partially funded by NERC. Copyright and other rights for material on this site are retained by the authors and/or other rights owners. Users should read the terms and conditions of use of this material at http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/policies.html#access    If you wish to cite this item please use the reference above or cite the NORA entry                        Contact CEH NORA team at  nora@ceh.ac.uk 62 The research of the Institute in 1973-1974Multidisciplinary studies and surveysAs Section II explains, while the permanent organizationof ITE is based on a series of Divisions and Subdivisionsrelated to scientific disciplines, and the majority of theresearch projects summarized in these pages have beengrouped under Subdivisional headings, ecologicalresearch is inevitably multidisciplinary and the Institutewill retain project groups that bring together scientistsfrom several Subdivisions. Because of the transitionalstage in our re-organization, these project groups havenot been defined in time for them to be described in thisReport, but they will feature prominently in later years,and more and more research is likely to be summarizedunder Project Group rather than Subdivisional headings.There are several activities in 1974 which can only be sotreated. They have been brought together here. Twoinvolve the synthesis of major components of the Inter-national Biological Programme summarized by P. S.Maitland and J. E. Satchell. Five are surveys — of Britishlakes and reservoirs ; of the habitats of the Isle of Man ;of the biology of Shetland ; of the habitats and ecologyof the Wash, in connection with Feasibility Studies forfreshwater storage reservoirs ; and of the Maplin area.All these surveys were commissioned (at least in part)the first two by the Nature Conservancy Council whoalso supported part of the third, and the last two by theCentral Water Planning Unit and the Department of theEnvironment respectively.The New Agricultural Landscapes project sponsoredby the Countryside Commission examined the changinglandscape of lowland Britain arising from modernfarming methods. M. J. Woodman reports on thisproject, for which he acted as ecological adviser.B. N. K. Davis has been recording the developing wild-life of pits and quarries as a basis for planning theirfuture use.INTERNATIONAL BIOLOGICAL PROGRAMMELoch Leven SymposiumA three-day Symposium on the Loch Leven Interna-tional Biological Programme Research Project was heldat the University of Stirling from 11 to 13 June 1973,and sponsored by the Royal Society of Edinburgh.Papers presented at this meeting covered all majoraspects of this project with special emphasis on adescription of the ecosystem there, and the mainenergy flow from solar radiation through plants andinvertebrates, to fish and ducks. All papers presentedat the Symposium were published together as a singleissue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edin-burgh in June 1974, edited by Dr P. S. Maitland. Thisvolume contains twenty-five papers covering much ofthe work done during the IBP period and is availablefrom the Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.P. S. Maitland.The Meathop Wood ProjectThe Meathop Wood Project, begun in 1965, involvedthe study of a small area of deciduous broad-leavedwoodland in Lancashire, and an attempt has been madeto obtain an energy budget for the community and toelucidate carbon and mineral cycling. Estimates havebeen made of the potential photosynthesis of thedominant tree and shrub species and their net primaryproduction. The rate of litter fall, sub-divided into thevarious components such as leaves, branches andfruits ; root increment and death ; and the soil organicmatter content were measured. The decomposition ofdead wood in the canopy, of litter on the forest floor andof roots in the soil were followed, and the populationsof soil animals, fungi and bacteria were examined.The mineral uptake by various plant species wascalculated and the mineral content of the incomingrain, the trunk-flow and canopy throughfall, and theleaching of the litter and soil were assessed.A preliminary account of the work was presented at asymposium of the British Ecological Society in 1974and revealed a number of gaps in the data and the needfor confirmation of experimental findings. This final datachecking stage will be completed in 1975. In the lastyear, intensive effort has been devoted to bringing thedecomposition data together into a 'Meathop Decom-position Model' and it is hoped that a volume presentingthe results of the whole project will be at press shortly.J. E. SatchellINDEX OF BRITISH LAKES AND RESERVOIRSA count has been made of all the lakes, reservoirs andother water bodies marked on 1 :250000 maps, as aninitial step in defining the nature and extent of the fresh-water resources of Great Britain. The location, andphysical features such as depth and area, have beentabulated and will be stored on a computer index. Theindex will make it possible to list all waters meetingspecified conditions of location and physical charac-teristics. It will not only allow research and experi-mental work (including biological sampling) to beplanned more efficiently, but also make more effectiveuse of existing knowledge. Various tests of theadequacy of the count have been made. These indicatethat the index will not normally include water bodiesless than 5 ha in area, and only accounts for 10% of allthe waters marked on more detailed maps.

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