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Science Newsletter Issue 34 – January 2021 ______ NatureScot Science Newsletter Issue 34 – January 2021 _______________________________________________________ __ In this issue: Page Welcome from the SAC Chair 2 Planting a new bridge for twinflower in the Cairngorms 2 We’re asking hill-going citizen scientists to help count Mountain Hares 4 Nature should be the beating heart of resilience 5 The Flow Country proposed WHS 6 What next for Scotland’s diversity scorecard? 7 Mapping Scotland from Space – part 2 8 SAC CHAIR – Thank you to Bob Furness 10 Research Reports Published in October 2020 – January 2021 10 Upcoming conferences 11 Staff Profile – Alison Lee 12 1 Welcome from the SAC Chair Bob Furness Welcome to the January 2021 NatureScot Science newsletter. I hope you enjoy reading the various items in this issue. My term as a Board member and chair of SAC ends in March, so I want to take this opportunity to say thank you very much indeed to all of the SAC members, past and present, for their contributions to SAC during my time as chair. Thanks to their efforts, the SAC has functioned in a highly collegiate manner – providing concise and clear advice to NatureScot staff and Board on a wide range of difficult scientific issues. I look forward to a seamless transition when the next chair is appointed. I also want to thank the many NatureScot staff who over the years have helped so efficiently, with briefings on the topics being brought to SAC, with preparing the papers for the committee, and managing the business of the committee. I’m especially grateful to Lynne Clark and Sarah Hutcheon for managing to keep me on track (most of the time), and to Des Thompson for always being there to discuss and to advise. I have enjoyed my role very much indeed. Partly because the topics we have considered have been so rewarding and worthwhile, as well as being scientifically challenging. But mainly because the NatureScot staff and SAC members have been so great to work with. Planting a new bridge for twinflower in the Cairngorms Pip Gullett, Cairngorms Connect Twinflower (Linnaea borealis) is a small delicate flower, native to pinewoods in Scotland. Interestingly, the first half of twinflower’s scientific name, Linnaea, comes from Carl Linnaeus, the ‘father of modern taxonomy’ who created the system for naming organisms binomially, whose favourite flower was twinflower. If you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of these beauties in flower, you’ll understand why! It can be found growing around the northern hemisphere in what’s known as the boreal forest zone (indicated by the second half of its scientific name – borealis), ranging from northern Europe to Siberia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland, as well as some mountainous areas at lower latitudes. Once widespread in the ancient Caledonian forests of the Scottish Highlands, centuries of deforestation and conversion of natural forests to managed plantations has greatly restricted its distribution within Scotland to small isolated patches, to such an extent that it is now classed as nationally scarce. Pollinator visiting a twinflower patch (© Cairngorms Connect) 2 In the few places where they still persist, twinflower can form quite large, apparently healthy patches. But don’t be fooled! As twinflower can spread through vegetative propagation, even quite large patches might be made up of just a single genetic individual (aka ‘clone’). In fact, in Scotland a huge 80% or so of twinflower patches comprise only a single clone, with most of the remaining 20% of patches containing just a handful of very closely related individuals. This puts populations at risk of extinction – if patches were to become subject to disease or environmental change, all individuals would be equally susceptible, as opposed to potentially including advantageous variations of genes that could promote survival. To increase their genetic diversity, and ultimately persist into the future, twinflower needs to be able to reproduce sexually with a different clone. However, there’s another of the problems – most of the remaining neighbouring patches are too far apart for the small flies that pollinate them to travel between patches, meaning that there is very limited cross-pollination and therefore seed production. As a result, intervention is needed to help ensure twinflower’s survival within the Scottish landscape. In 2014, as part of the Cairngorms Rare Plant Project, a series of translocations led by Andy Scobie were set up to bring together several isolated clones together at a single site, close enough for pollinators to travel between them. Two different methods were used to do this: establishing new populations (i.e. introducing multiple patches of twinflower from several different clones to the same site within areas of suitable habitat) and augmenting existing populations (i.e. planting additional clones within pollinating distance of existing healthy single-clone patches). Building on from this work, in autumn 2019, Cairngorms Connect revisited some of the patches previously augmented with additional genetic individuals to add more to each site so that each natural patch was surrounded by 8 genetically unique individuals, close enough for pollinators to travel between. This autumn, we decided to focus on reintroductions to new areas of suitable habitat within the Cairngorms Connect partnership area. We identified ten new sites within RSPB Abernethy and Forestry and Land Scotland’s Glenmore with favourable conditions for twinflower both now and in the future, as restoration work continues within the forest to expand this habitat. Twenty genetically distinct, healthy twinflower patches within the Strathspey area with similar ecological characteristics to the release sites were also identified and stolons (i.e. the creeping stems that form patches of twinflower) with plenty of roots were collected from each to be planted at the release sites. At each release site, six clones were planted in clusters of 16 stolons, with each cluster located within 10m of its neighbour to help pollinators to travel between the clones. Throughout October, 960 individual stolons of twinflower were translocated and planted within the Cairngorms Connect area. What’s next? And so, what’s next for twinflower in the Cairngorms Connect area? In 2021, we’ll be revisiting the sites set up in 2019 to take a full baseline survey of how the new twinflower stolons have been settling into their new home and re-visiting the sites from this year to do the same in 2022. With other organisations including Plantlife Scotland and National Trust for Scotland also looking to carry out additional translocation work in the National Park, it’s a hopeful time for twinflower conservation. All going well, these new populations will form a bridge to increase twinflower genetic diversity in the Cairngorms, that will dramatically enhance the resilience of remnant populations as well as enabling them to spread and disperse, thereby ensuring the survival of the species within Scotland into the future. Cairngorms Connect is a partnership between RSPB Scotland, Forestry and Land Scotland, NatureScot and Wildland Limited, working towards a shared 200-year vision to enhance habitats, species and ecological processes over a connected landscape. They are assisted with funding from the Endangered Landscapes Programme. A huge thank you to Andy Scobie for his help and expertise through the project, to neighbouring land managers, including Seafield Estate, for donations of twinflower material, as well as Richard Ennos and all the volunteers who helped with the translocations on the ground. 3 For more information, please contact [email protected] or [email protected] We’re asking hill-going citizen scientists to help count mountain hares Rob Raynor When was the last time you spotted a mountain hare on your day out in the hills? If you were up any of the more easterly heather-dominated summits in Deeside, Donside or Drumochter regions, it may well have been then. But if you were out in the west or north-west Highlands, it could have been a long time ago, if ever. This is not to say that there are no hares in these areas, it is just that they are much scarcer, cryptic and more localised. Although mountain hares can be found in a variety of upland habitats, they are most abundant in heather-dominated areas, often managed as grouse moors and particularly where these overly base-rich rocks. In recent years, there has been concern about the state of the mountain hare population and the possible effect of hare control measures undertaken on some sporting estates. The available data sources present a mixed picture of the species’ conservation status, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions on population size and trends. The picture is further complicated by the naturally cyclical nature of their populations, which can fluctuate quite dramatically over periods of 9-10 years or so. To address this, NatureScot has been working with a range of organisations to develop and pilot a new, bespoke monitoring scheme, based on night-time counts using spot-lights along fixed transects in pre-defined, random survey squares distributed across the Highlands south of the Great Glen. This method, while effective at detecting hares in certain habitats, is labour intensive and only practical in terrain that is not too steep or craggy. In practice, this means it is restricted mainly to the central and eastern Highlands, leaving extensive areas in the west and north-west where another approach to counting hares is necessary. Therefore, in these more challenging areas, along with our partners - the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the James Hutton Institute, the Mammal Society and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust - we’re about to trial some options involving volunteer citizen scientists. Over the autumn and winter 4 months a great deal of preparatory work has been underway, modifying an existing smartphone app called Mammal Mapper and adapting the existing BTO website to allow on-line volunteer sign-up, as well as developing training and promotional material.
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