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UCC Zoology 177500 Planforbio No11.Qxd PLANFORBIO Issue 11 NEWS June 2012 WELCOME Welcome to the 11th issue of the PLANFORBIO Research Programme Newsletter. The five year HEN HARRIER research project came to a conclusion in March of this year. This was the second project in INSIDE THIS ISSUE the programme to be completed and included a PhD by Barry O’Donoghue and a number of journal publications and policy input.The remaining PLANFORBIO projects,RHODO and BIOPLAN,are now in the data analysis phase and a wealth of publications and conference presentations of the findings are ❚ LONG-TERM WOODLAND expected over the next year. The team are looking forward to the IUFRO Second International Conference on Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems and Landscapes, which they will host at UCC in MONITORING IN IRELAND 1 August. ❚ INDEX OF WOODLAND BIODIVERSITY POTENTIAL 2 LONG-TERM WOODLAND ❚ HEN HARRIER MONITORING IN IRELAND Miles Newman CONSERVATION 2 The current suite of semi-natural long-term monitoring plots being used in BIOPLAN are largely ❚ 2ND INTERNATIONAL a result of work initiated in the late 1960’s and the CONFERENCE 2 1970’s. These plots are spread between three National Parks and were established for a variety of reasons by a variety of people. ❚ RHODODENDRON In the winter of 1969 work was underway on CONTROL PROJECT 3 establishing 15 monitoring plots in the Derrybawn and Glendalough Oak woods of Wicklow Mountains ❚ CLOSER TO NATURE National Park. This project was initiated by Mr Micheal Neff of the former Forest & wildlife Service The exclosure at Tomies Wood in 2011 showing good FORESTRY 4 with subsequently surveyors including Dr. John inside/outside contrast Cross and several members of the Botany Additional exclosures were set up in the Yew and ❚ MINISTER DEENIHAN Department at TCD. Unfortunately these plots are now in bad condition as many of the exclosures Oak woods of the Muckross peninsula in 1969 and LAUNCHES BOOK ON BIRD have fallen derelict. Upkeep of these plots is vital to 1974 by Dr. Kelly and Dr. Alan Craig, respectively. HABITATS 4 the long-term monitoring dataset. These plots have been surveyed periodically since then,including an extensive survey of all plots by Dr. ❚ Dr. Michael Telford’s work on ‘past and present Phillip Perrin in 2001. A little later than the rest, a CONGRATULATIONS TO vegetation’ in Glenveagh National Park, Co. Donegal network of smaller unfenced permanent plots KAREN MOORE 4 between 1973 and 1976 resulted in the throughout Killarney National Park was established establishment of the first of several deer exclosures in 1991. A total of 87 plots now exist which have around the Park’s small woodlands. These initial been surveyed in successive 5 year intervals since exclosures were added to over the next decade and their initiation. again in 1987 by Lieveke Van Doorslaer and Aileen O’Sullivan. A total of 5 woodlands are now exclosed There are, however, constant intricacies with long- in the Park, however, due to intentional inclusion of term plots as fence posts decay, trees fall on domestic animals inside several exclosures, only 2 exclosure fencing, and important markers are exclosures remain useable for testing the effects of accidently removed. The great advantage of this long-term exclusion of large herbivores. work carried out 20, 30, and 40 years ago, is the true long-term monitoring datasets which have been The Tomies Wood exclosure in Killarney National created for these woodlands. In a time when the Park, set up in 1972, was a focus of Dr. Daniel Kelly’s establishment of long-term monitoring plots is not PhD thesis and he has mentioned the fact that this in the interest of funders (as it does not product may be the place he has spent more fieldwork time instant results), we should try to remain farsighted, in than any other, during his career.With the 50 year as long-term datasets are invaluable, regardless of anniversary of this research project only a decade transient economic chaos, particularly in helping us away, this plot has provided long-term insight into predict ecological shifts in the era of climate change. woodland regeneration and changes in community As useful a predictive tool as ecological models may www.ucc.ie/en/planforbio composition. be, there is no substitute for good long-term ecological monitoring. INDEX OF WOODLAND BIODIVERSITY POTENTIAL Linda Coote Forests contain a large proportion of global biodiversity but, although European forest cover is currently approximately 45% of the land area, in Ireland, forest covers only 11%. This means that it is HEN important that the biodiversity that is supported by the forests we have is maximised. Forest owners and managers therefore need Mark Wilson information on how their woodlands measure up in terms of their HARRIER CONSERVATION potential to support biodiversity and on what they can do to The HEN HARRIER project was completed in March 2012. The aim of the improve this. Forest policy makers also need this information for our project was to increase our knowledge of Hen Harrier breeding biology and entire woodland resource. Because surveying the entire biodiversity habitat requirements to inform conservation management of this species of a woodland requires specialist knowledge and is rarely possible, in Ireland. During five breeding seasons from 2007 to 2011 detailed data there is increasing interest in using indicators of biodiversity. These was collected on Hen Harrier ecology in four study areas in Ireland using a are easily measured features which influence or are a reflection of range of traditional and novel methodologies including direct levels of biodiversity. Assessing these indicators can therefore tell observations, nest cameras, GPS tags, pellet analysis and wing-tagging of you what level of biodiversity a woodland can potentially support. juveniles. For example, assessing the amount of deadwood can tell you about the potential of a woodland to support saproxylic species (species Hen Harriers have declined in range and population over the past 200 years, dependent during some part of their life cycle on deadwood). and the breeding population is now concentrated in the south and west of Ireland, particularly in the counties of Cork, Limerick and Kerry. Despite PLANFORBIO researcher Linda Coote, from Trinity College Dublin is some, more recent, population increases, this species remains vulnerable collaborating with Nadia Barsoum, from Forest Research, UK, on and is listed as a species of conservation concern on Annex 1 of the developing an index for Ireland, which would allow forest owners European Union Birds Directive. This Directive requires that Ireland takes and managers to assess the biodiversity potential of their measures to ensure the persistence of Hen Harriers through designation of woodlands. This index is based on the Indice de Biodiversité Special Protection Areas (SPAs), within which appropriate steps must be Potentielle (Potential Biodiversity Index) which was developed in taken to provide and maintain suitable habitat for Hen Harriers. There are France by Laurent Larrieu and Pierre Gonin. Five indicators that can six designated Hen Harrier SPAs in Ireland at present, all of which all include be influenced by forest management (number of native trees, suitable Hen Harrier breeding habitat such as heaths and bogs, rough number of vertical layers, amount of standing deadwood, amount of grassland and conifer plantations, and these must be managed in order to fallen deadwood, number of veteran trees, proportion of open areas) ensure the provision of suitable habitat in the face of future developments and four that cannot, but which also have an important influence on and land use change. biodiversity (woodland continuity, area, presence of aquatic habitats, presence of rock and soil surface features) are suggested. The This project provided detailed scientific data on Hen Harriers that is indicators can be assessed from a quick walkthrough of a wood and essential if Ireland is to meet its obligations to protect Hen Harriers and don’t need any specialist knowledge. their habitats under the EU Birds Directive,which can only be achieved with the support of good policies and management practices. There is scope to Each indicator is given a score between zero and five and the scores build on this significant body of work in the future to provide a more are summed to give a maximum of 25 for the forest management- thorough understanding of Hen Harrier population ecology in Ireland, related indicators and 20 for the context-related indicators.The index particularly in light of continued land use and climate change. The is expressed as the percentage of the maximum for each part and challenges that we face in this regard include investigations of the role of allows forest managers to easily identify where there might be scope habitat quality in breeding success, the interaction between breeding and for improvement. The index is currently being compared to actual roosting populations, the fate of fledged young in Ireland and the source of biodiversity data collected during PLANFORBIO. It is hoped that it our breeding population and factors of importance to Hen Harrier can be further tested in the field so that it can act as a useful tool for populations in the changing landscapes of the future. woodland owners and managers and provide important information to forest policy makers. nd Cork during the last week of August to share and exchange information 2 International Conference on on the sustainable management of forest ecosystems and landscapes. Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems More than 160 abstracts were submitted and have been incorporated into 12 sessions that will run over the four days of the conference.There and Landscapes will also be an excursion to Killarney National Park during the conference University College Cork, 28 – 31 August 2012 and an optional post-conference excursion to Gougane Barra.
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