Testing novel management techniques for Caledonian pinewoods: cattle, mowing, and fire.

Project objectives
Work planned or underway
Results
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Caledonian pine forest, RSPB Loch Garten nature reserve
Caledonian pine forest

The Caledonian pine forest once covered much of Scotland but is now reduced to about 1% of its former extent. British populations of the world's largest grouse, the capercaillie, reach their highest densities in these forests, but this species is at risk of extinction in Britain. Restoring the remarkable surviving fragments of Caledonian pinewood, and their characteristic, and charismatic, species, may require developing new conservation management tools.

Fire and large herbivores are widely considered to be key ecological processes in natural woodland, especially in boreal pine forests. Can these processes be mimicked by land managers, and help conservation objectives like forest expansion and capercaillie conservation?

Project objectives

To test the efficacy of three management techniques: management fire, mowing and cattle grazing/trampling.
To test the three management techniques against three objectives: increased pine regeneration, improved capercaillie habitat, and improved black grouse habitat.

Work planned or underway

The various management trials and experiments commenced in the period 2000-7; work is therefore at a range of stages for different trial prescriptions.

The most advanced work is in support of using management fire to promote increased Scots pine regeneration. Here, experiments demonstrated the efficacy of this technique, which we have been using for reserve management for a number of years. Also, the experimental areas continue to provide information as to the longer-term total recruitment and survival of pine seedlings in burnt areas.

More recently, we have also established that cattle grazing/trampling, mowing and management fire are all likely to lead to improvements in capercaillie habitat. Here, we moved to the management phase, using mowing as the preferred technique, in 2006. A large-scale evaluation of this approach against the objective of improved capercaillie productivity is under way.

Work is most newly started in terms of testing fire and mowing vs. black grouse conservation. Here we are at the stage of monitoring responses of vegetation and grouse to the trial management that took place over winters in the period 2007-9.

Results

Achievements to date:

Seven field experiments or trials established.

Four evidence-based management prescriptions developed, based on results of these trials.

Management already underway using two of these prescriptions.

Areas burnt using management fires, had Scots pine seedling establishment that was around 4 to 10 times higher than unburnt areas. Slow fires had establishment rates that were further enhanced. Deer effects were shown to be relatively minor in the first years after fires, with some increases in establishment in the first two years, if deer were excluded. For further information see the following published papers, for which abstracts are available online: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037811270500201X & http://www.springerlink.com/content/x4811p138171313l/

There was an unexpected, exceptional heather Calluna vulgaris die-back event in spring 2003, which contributed to management aims in terms of increases in bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus, an important habitat element for capercaillie. The causes and consequences of this important, but unexpected, event are examined in more detail in the following published paper, for which the full text is available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17550870802260772

Cattle trials at Abernethy showed that a short phase of autumn cattle trampling and grazing, led to more bilberry-rich vegetation, important for Capercaillie broods. The structure of the vegetation was probably more favourable to pine regeneration after cattle impacts, but unexpectedly low seed-fall in the trial year made it hard to demonstrate this unequivocably. For further information, see the following published paper, for which the abstract is available online: http://www.springerlink.com/content/x5n3u8564n7j6m87/

Trials of burning and mowing within the old, open forest stands at Abernethy, showed that, after six years, these techniques result in increased cover of bilberry Vaccinium myrtillus (up by about a third), and increased abundance of spiders (up by about a half). Both these changes are likely to improve capercaillie habitat quality, because bilberry-rich areas are preferred by capercaillie broods, and spiders are important in the diet of capercaillie chicks. For further information, see the following published paper, for which the abstract is available online: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112711002349.