Trees outside woods take many forms, including small copses, hedgerows, scattered trees and scrub. They provide a variety of benefits for wildlife and people but these are often not well understood and many trees have been lost from the landscape. This project provides an evidence base to support their protection and restoration by quantifying their value for wildlife and understanding their management challenges.
CONSERVATION CONTEXT
Viewed from the air, much of the UK countryside looks like a patchwork quilt: fields are joined by a network of hedgerows, interspersed with scattered trees and copses. These ‘trees outside woods’ connect our fragmented, human-dominated landscapes, and many declining wildlife species depend on them. But their importance is not widely understood and action is needed to protect them in the face of numerous threats. By harnessing the work of hundreds of citizen scientists who monitor butterflies across the UK, we have been exploring the value of trees outside woods for biodiversity. Analysis of data collected for Butterfly Conservation’s Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey, together with satellite imagery and land cover maps, have been revealing how trees and hedgerows can help provide connected habitats for butterflies across farmed landscapes. Farmers and landowners have a key role in protecting these habitats and, through farm visits and surveys, we have also been finding out how they can best be supported to do this.
APPROACH
We use data collected by citizen scientists for the Wider Countryside Butterfly Survey and collate GIS data from different sources, to link trees outside woods to biodiversity variation. Using an online questionnaire survey, we explore farmers’ views of trees outside woods, identifying benefits and challenges associated with measures for increasing trees outside woods on farms, to help with the development and delivery of appropriate support and advice.
PROJECT MEMBERS
Ruth Feber coordinates this research. Paul Johnson collaborates on experimental design and data analysis. Nigel Bourn (Butterfly Conservation) is a long-term collaborator.