Selected publications
'Beyond 2010' conference report
Report of the conference Beyond 2010: strategies for understanding and responding to long-term trends in UK biodiversity, London, November 2010
The Environmental Change Network at Alice Holt Research Forest
This Research Note reviews data collected at the Alice Holt site over 14 years of operation from 1992–2006.
Climate change impacts: Evidence from ECN sites
This publication highlights some of the findings from ECN monitoring and research which provide evidence of the sensitivity of natural ecosystems in the UK to variability and change in climate
Vegetation exerts a greater control on litter decomposition than climate warming in peatlands
To compare the effects of climate warming and vegetation change on decomposition and carbon accumulation, the team led by Sue Ward (Lancaster University) conducted an experiment on peatland at the Moor House-Upper Teesdale ECN site in the North Pennines. ECN meteorological data were used.
A new approach to modelling the relationship between annual population abundance indices and weather data
This paper on the relationship between weather and fluctuations in species' population sizes uses data from a range of sources including moth data collected at ECN terrestrial sites and contributed to the Rothamsted Insect Survey.
Modelling impacts of atmospheric deposition and temperature on long-term DOC trends
ECN and the Forest Level II monitoring network are the UK’s only source of information on long-term change in soil water chemistry. In this study, soil solution chemistry data from three upland ECN sites and three UK ICP Forest Level II sites were modelled using the dynamic soil chemistry model, MADOC, which simulates long-term changes in carbon and nitrogen cycling and soil acidity. Results suggest that future dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations may exceed preindustrial levels due to nitrogen pollution, which has implications for drinking water catchment management.
Modelling study of soil C, N and pH response to air pollution and climate change using European LTER site observations
This study used meteorological and soil solution data collected at two ECN forest sites (Wytham and Alice Holt) and over 20 other long-term research sites in a Europe-wide modelling study. The work was done in the EU H2020 eLTER project.
Estimating habitat extent and carbon loss from an eroded northern blanket bog using UAV derived imagery and topography
In this study, researchers used aerial imagery collected by flying a UAV over the ECN Moor House site, an upland blanket bog. From this spatial data, a digital surface model was constructed and vegetation and peatland features were classified, enabling carbon loss to be estimated. The paper shows what can be achieved with low-cost UAVs equipped with consumer grade camera equipment, and demonstrates their potential for the carbon and peatland conservation research community.
Dung fungi as an indicator of large herbivore dynamics in peatlands
This paper describes a study in which coprophilious fungal spores (CFS) were analysed in three peatland grazing experiments, two of which are located at ECN terrestrial sites (Glensaugh and Moor House). Coprophilous fungal spores (CFS) have gained prominence in paleoecology as a proxy for large herbivore dynamics. The study was supported by the Ecological Continuity Trust.
The UK Environmental Change Network datasets – integrated and co-located data for long-term environmental research (1993–2015)
This paper describes the 19 ECN datasets comprising data collected at terrestrial ECN sites from 1993 to 2015
